


The Blade of Memory

by exclamation



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Gen, Kidnapping, Part Galra Keith, Prisoners, amnesiac Keith, blade of marmora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-21 23:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 42,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9571790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exclamation/pseuds/exclamation
Summary: Kan has no memory of his life before he was found injured and adrift by the Blade of Marmora. He doesn't know where he comes from, what species he is, or even his real name. All he knows is that the Blade saved him and gave him a purpose, so he fights for them. His loyalty has never wavered - until now.When he comes across a slave that seems to be the same species as him, Kan decides to rescue him. But saving Matt broke a number of the Blade's rules and helping Matt further would mean going against Kolivan's orders.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate universe that diverges from canon around the start of season 2 with Team Voltron never meeting Ulas or any of the Blade of Marmora. Much of the story focuses on Kan (Keith) and Matt but the other Voltron characters will be showing up eventually.

Retrieving the stolen cloaking device from the Galra research lab was Kan's first solo mission for the Blade of Marmora. The way things were going, it might well be his last. Everything had been going well to begin with, but he'd triggered a security alert while removing the cloaking device from the case it had been sealed in, and now he had to make it back to his ship with a heavy piece of tech under one arm and every guard and sentry robot in the place coming after him. 

He had his sword out, but fighting an army of Galran forces was difficult when they had guns and he had to avoid damaging the cloak. His backup plan was to destroy the cloaking device to avoid the Galra working out how to create their own, but his orders were only to do that if he had absolutely no choice. The Blade couldn't afford to lose any advantage they had. 

So Kan ran down the hallways of the base, not caring about stealth any longer. He just needed to get out of here before they figured out where his ship was latched on to the space station's hull. A pair of sentries rounded the corner and brought their guns up. Kan dropped below the laser fire and used his momentum to slide along the floor between them, slashing at their legs as he passed. As they fell, he sliced the robots to pieces and then hurried back to his feet. 

More footsteps were approaching from an adjoining hallway, a lot of footsteps, so Kan dodged in the other direction. He'd have to find another route back to his ship. He ducked through a doorway and froze, staring at the shocked face that stared back at him. 

Kan must have come into one of the work areas because the figure in front of was wearing the dark rags of a slave and cuffed to a bench while he scrubbed rust off the surface of engine components for recycling. It wasn't surprising to find slaves on a station like this, but Kan had never seen a slave like this before, a slave who looked like him. The same basic body form, with two legs and two arms and roughly the same height and shape. The same growth of fur on the top of the head and bare skin elsewhere. The same blunt nails and rounded ears. In the ticks that had passed since Kan stepped into the room, he had become certain that this slave was the same species as the bulk of his DNA. 

Kan couldn't just leave him here. 

This wasn't a rescue mission. He wasn't authorised to free slaves, but how was he supposed to leave behind the only person he'd ever seen who looked like him? Kolivan would be furious at him for deviating from his mission parameters, but Kan didn't care right then. 

He hurried towards the slave, who flinched back in fear, no doubt intimidated by the armour and sword. There wasn't time to explain; more sentries would be on them in moments. 

"Hold still," Kan said. He brought his sword down against the slave's cuff and sent a surge of power through the blade. The cuff shattered. The slave just stared in confusion and fear. 

"Come on," Kan said. 

"What?" 

"Consider this a rescuing or a kidnapping, but you're coming with me. Or you can stay and explain to your captors why you're not chained up anymore." 

The thought of what the Galran forces would do to a slave for attempting to escape clearly made up the slave's mind. He hurried to keep up as Kan set off through the bowels of the station again. The next Galra soldiers they came across, Kan took down quickly while the slave stared in shock. Kan picked up the gun one of the soldiers had been using and handed it to the slave, who took it awkwardly and tucked it against his side. 

"You're holding it backwards," Kan said. 

"Oh. Right. Sorry. Usually I try to stay the hell away from people holding these." 

An understandable attitude for a slave. He adjusted his grip, pointing the gun the right direction this time, but Kan wasn't at all confident about his ability to use it. 

"Try not to shoot me in the back," Kan said and led the way again. He'd memorised the schematics for this space station prior to the mission, but it was hard to keep track of his position now that he was actually here. Maps and reality were very different. It didn't help that he was running through the station too fast to stop and pay attention to his surroundings. Constantly changing direction to avoid getting shot at wasn't helping either. They crossed a junction and found a group of sentries standing guard in the adjoining hall. Kan kept running, the slave hurrying behind him with a yelp of terror as weapon fire filled the narrow space. The slave fired behind them as they ran, but he was clearly struggling to keep up, whether from poor physical condition or an inability to run and shoot at the same time. 

Kan rounded a corner and came to an abrupt stop, the slave nearly crashing into him. 

"Hold this." Kan shoved the cloaking device into the slave's hands. 

"They're right behind us," the slave protested at their stationary position, but Kan was ready to move the second the first sentry came around the corner. His sword flashed through the air, slashing the robots to pieces. Unencumbered by the cloaking device, he could finally _fight_ , dodging between the weapons to drive his blade deep into metal and gears to leave them sparking on the floor. 

"That was awesome," the slave said. He stared at the ruined mess of sentry robots like it was a work of art and Kan felt a flutter of pride at his work. There was no time to stop and bask in glory though, not when there were probably several hundred more of these things somewhere on the station. 

"Do you know which level we're on?" Kan asked, taking back the cloaking device. 

"Seventh." 

"I came down too far. We need to be on ninth." He'd jumped into a maintenance shaft to avoid a group of guards and had been too focused on not plummeting to his death to count the levels properly. 

"There's an elevator just this way but you have to be able to operate Galra tech to make it work," the slave said. 

"Not a problem." Kan was only a tiny fraction Galra in his DNA, but it was enough to make Galra technology work. The sensors that controlled the access panels were sensitive enough to work through armour, which meant they were sensitive enough to pick out a few Galran genes amid millions of alien ones. Kan might not look anything like a Galra, but he was close enough to fool the computers and that was good enough. He let the slave show him to the elevator and Kan hurried inside, touching the controls to take them up two levels. This would save them having to climb up shafts. 

"Are you Galra?" the slave asked, watching the panel light up at Kan's touch. 

"Barely." 

The fear the slave had shown earlier was back, but Kan didn't have time to reassure him. The elevator door opened and Kan found himself facing another Galra. He shoved his sword into the soldier's chest but a blast of laser fire caught his arm from down the hallway. The slave leaned round Kan and used the dying soldier as cover so he could shoot at the one who'd shot Kan. As the Galra both fell dead, Kan checked his arm, but his armour had held, deflecting most of the energy. His arm would be sore for a while, but there'd be no permanent damage. 

"Thanks," Kan muttered, then started moving again. He knew where he was now, knew the route to take back to his ship. He headed into a storage room that was built against the edge of the station. 

"This is a dead end," the slave warned him, but Kan already knew that. He walked past the shelves to the back of the room and the small hole that was cut through the thick hull of the station. His ship had been specially designed so that he could drill into space stations and ships so that he could infiltrate without having to go through the normal bays and docking areas. The hole was tightly sealed so that no one would detect the breach until he pulled away, but it left a direct opening to the hatch of his ship. Kan set down his burden long enough to press a hand to one of the locking pads, and press the hilt of his sword to the other. His ship took a few moments to verify his identity, and then Kan scrambled in through the hole, fixing his sword into its place on his back as he emerged into his ship's interior. The slave climbed in after him. 

"Seal the hatch," Kan ordered, already sliding into the pilot ship and bringing the systems online. It took a few moments since the ship had been completely powered down, aside from the breaching hatch, in order to reduce the risk of detection. The slave did as he was told, closing the hatch and letting it seal shut. 

"Hold tight," Kan warned, then he broke the seal and let the decompression from the station knock his ship out and into space. He fired up the engines to full power and accelerated away before the crew of the station could figure out what was going on and lock their weapons on him. 

His ship was small enough mass that he could move quickly and built up the speed necessary to launch into hyperspeed. This might have been his first solo mission, but he'd piloted for enough other missions that he was working entirely on instinct as he plotted his escape course, changing trajectory a few times to throw off any possible pursuers, and then setting course for the Blade of Marmora's base. 

He was out. Kan closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair for a few moments, letting himself feel the relief of escape. He'd completed his mission with only a minor injury so hopefully Kolivan would be willing to forgive him for the serious breach he'd just committed in stealing a slave. 

Kan turned to look at his new prisoner. He was clinging to the back of Kan's pilot chair since this craft didn't have a second seat or much space for a passenger. The gun was still in the slave's hand but it was now pointed down at the ground. If there was trouble, Kan could probably disarm the slave without much effort; it hadn't seemed like the slave had any combat experience. 

"Thanks," the slave said, "you know, for getting me out of there." 

"Don't get the idea that I was being a hero or anything," Kan said. "I want something from you." 

"What?" The grip on the gun tightened. 

"Information." 

"I'm not sure I'd be able to give you much. Unless you want to know how long it takes to clean chemical erosion off fuel intake valves. I know a lot about that." He smiled like it was a joke, but his tone and posture still conveyed nervousness. 

"I think you'll be able to give me a lot of information," Kan said. He triggered his mask and pushed back his hood, letting his face be fully visible. The startled gasp told him that he'd been right. This slave recognised his species just as Kan had. 

"You're human," the slave said, voice full of astonishment. 

"If that's the name of our species," Kan said, "then I guess so." He wanted a medical test run when he got back to the base so he could make sure, but it was obvious that the slave thought they were the same species. 

"I haven't seen another human in so long." 

"I've never seen another human." Not that he could remember anyway. He'd presumably had parents once, although it was entirely possible his species laid eggs and left their young to fend for themselves. He didn't know. His memories only went back to waking up in the Blade of Marmora's medical wing, lucky to be alive after the damage the oxygen deprivation had done to his brain. 

"I don't understand," the slave said. 

"I brought you out of that place so that you can tell me about my world, about where I come from." After a moment he added. "You can call me Kan." 

"Kan?" 

"It's from Galran. It loosely translates as unknown." 

The slave smiled a little, even though Kan hadn't meant it as a joke. 

"Well, my name means 'gift of god' and I'm an atheist, so I'm not sure mine's any better. I'm Matt. It's nice to meet you." 

"Nice to meet you, Matt." 

Matt shifted his gun into his other hand and held his right out towards Kan. Kan frowned at it, confused, wondering if Matt was offering something or expecting Kan to give him something. 

"First lesson about humans," Matt said, "put your hand in mine." 

Cautiously, Kan did as he was told, placing his palm against Matt's and letting Matt's fingers close around his hand. Matt raised and lowered their hands together. Kan was even more confused. 

"This is a ritual greeting between humans," Matt said. "It's what you do when you introduce yourself to someone for the first time. Sometimes people do it when they say hello or goodbye, especially if it's a formal occasion or if they haven't seen the other person for a long while. It's called a handshake." 

"OK," Kan said. Matt let their hands part and Kan returned his hand to the controls of his ship. A handshake with a human. He was learning something already.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we get a few more answers... but not too many. :)

Kan docked his ship in the main bay of the Blade of Marmora's home base and started the refuelling procedures, then turned to look at Matt, who was straightening up from his uncomfortable seat on the floor, where he'd been cramped without complaints for the entire flight. 

"I broke some rules by bringing you here," Kan said, "and my commander will probably be angry with me. Stay by my side, only speak if you're asked a direct question, and follow my lead." 

"Am I going to get punished for being here?" Matt asked. 

"No. I'm the one who broke the rules." He hoped that would prove true. He was also hoping that the successful completion of his mission would earn him some leeway, but there were limits. Bringing an outsider into their headquarters was not something Kolivan or the senior members of the Blade would look favourably on. He eyed the gun that Matt was reaching for. "Leave that." 

Matt seemed nervous to go out there unarmed but he obeyed. Kan was glad he didn't have to press the issue because forcibly disarming Matt would probably make him a lot less willing to give the information Kan wanted. It seemed Matt was listening to him though because he stayed right beside Kan on the walk through the docking bay to the central control room. Kan held the cloaking device carefully, wanting to make sure his victory was as obvious as his disobedience. 

Kolivan was waiting in the control room, a grand hall that imposed on all who entered it. He stood beneath the symbol of Marmora, wearing his full mask and waiting like this was a formal ceremony. Antok stood beside him, also in full armour. They must have realised that Kan hadn't returned alone for them to be here so formally because this display was clearly more for Matt than Kan. At least they hadn't arrayed the other warriors, but it was still possible Kolivan would order Antok to deal with Matt. Kan really wished he could meet with Kolivan without having the brute warrior there, but he would deal with this. He walked up to his commander without a moment's hesitation. 

"I retrieved the cloaking device the Empire stole from us, as ordered," Kan said, setting the device down on the floor at Kolivan's feet, "and I destroyed their computers so if they managed to learn anything useful from it, they won't have the information to duplicate the technology or to find a way to detect ships that use it." 

"I see that wasn't all you retrieved." Kolivan's tone was hard. Kan was prepared for this. 

"He took out a Galra guard that was shooting at me," Kan said, "and helped me find a route through the station when I was forced to detour." He didn't mention that Matt had only done those things _after_ he'd already decided to free him. "He would have been killed for helping me if I'd left him behind." 

Kan couldn't see Kolivan's face to judge his expression. He couldn't even tell if Kolivan was watching him or Matt. The glowing false eyes on the mask seemed to bore into him without giving anything away about the thoughts taking place behind them. Matt was silent beside Kan, nervously twitching in place. Kan tried not to look at him and just stared at Kolivan, not wanting to back down. He had to act like he didn't think he'd done anything wrong. 

"Very well," Kolivan said. "He belongs to you. I will want a full report of your mission when you have had a chance to rest." 

"Thank you." Kan bowed his head and turned to walk out, putting a hand on Matt's arm to bring him along. Matt didn't say anything as they left the control room, or on the walk through the base back to Kan's quarters. It was only when they were inside the small room, the door closed behind them, that Matt spoke. 

"What did he mean about belonging to you?" 

"It means I'm responsible for you. It's my job to make sure you get what you need in terms of food and water and the like. It's also my job to make sure you don't break the rules. If you go into restricted areas of the base, hurt any of our people, or worse, betray our location to the Empire, then I will be the one ultimately held accountable. I told you, I wasn't being a hero. You're still a prisoner here, but I can be confident that I'll treat you better than you were being treated." 

"I just thought I was done with belonging to other people." 

Kan felt a little bad about bringing Matt here. Secrecy was the most important rule for the Blade of Marmora. He couldn't just let the human go, not after bringing him to the base and letting him see them, letting him see Kolivan. He'd known that bringing Matt here would result in this decision at best, but Matt wouldn't need to be a prisoner forever. If Matt could prove himself capable of keeping the Blade's secrets, prove himself worthy of trust, then Kan would ask Kolivan's permission to set him free. He couldn't just tell Matt though, because then if Matt were untrustworthy he would just pretend in order to trick them. Matt had to be unaware that they were judging him for the judgement to be valid. 

That meant Kan couldn't say anything that would erase the look of anger and disappointment on Matt's face. 

"I'm going to get some food," Kan said. "Wait here." 

He left the room and took a moment to seal the door and to set the system to record any attempts to open the door without his permission. This would be Matt's first test. 

Kan went to the medical deck and removed his armour long enough for the attendant on duty could apply the burn ointment to his arm and give him a short round of treatment from the regenerator unit. His armour had deflected most of the energy from the Galra gunfire, but there was still some surface damage and his skin was painful to the touch. The wound was minor enough that the ointment should have everything healed in a couple of days without him needing a longer session in medical. While he was there, Kan also made arrangements to have his new prisoner checked out the following day while he was in the debriefing with Kolivan. He would explain that he wanted to check Matt's health after his experiences as a prisoner of the Galra, but he would use the opportunity to get DNA information too. Once all that was done, Kan dressed in his armour again and finally went to the distribution hub and put in his request for two meal packs and an extra water allowance. While he was there, he requested some extra bedding. After a moment's consideration, he looked up clothing options as well. He couldn't provide Matt with the armour or uniform of the Blade, but he smelled like he'd been in his slave clothes for far too long. 

Kan's arms were full as he made his way back and he had to carefully juggle everything so he could check the control panel by the door. Matt had attempted to open the door just once, but hadn't done anything to force the locking mechanism. Kan would let it go without remark and no one but him needed to know the outcome of this first loyalty test. He opened the door and walked inside, dumping everything on his bunk. 

Matt had been sitting at the chair in front of Kan's small computer console. Kan would have to check that for unauthorised access attempts too, but it was possible Matt had just wanted to sit down and the chair and bunk were the only options in here. The Blade didn't go in for unnecessary furnishings. 

"Here," Kan handed Matt one of the meal packs. He sat down on the bunk and opened up the other, pulling out the block of processed food. They couldn't grow or prepare fresh food here, so everything they ate was carefully designed to pack in the appropriate level of nutrients for each person requesting it. Kan had based Matt's meal pack on his own requirements, but he could adjust it after the medical analysis. 

Matt returned to the console chair and sat on it sideways so he could face Kan. He took a nibble of the food block and made a face. 

"Your cooks here don't bother much with seasoning, do they?" he said. 

"What do you mean?" 

"The food. I mean, it doesn't taste terrible or anything it's just really bland. Back home, when we went on missions for the Garrison, everything was freeze-dried so that it could last basically forever and be efficiently stored, but the bio-techs still managed to make it all taste great." 

Kan stared at the meal pack in his hand. "This is the only food I can remember eating." 

"Wow. You are missing out on a lot. One day, I'm gonna have to take you to Earth so you can try real food. Cheeseburgers, chocolate pudding, roast potatoes. Hell, I'd even eat salad." Matt's face went from cheerful to miserable in about two ticks. "Assuming Earth's even still there. For all I know, the Galran Empire has blasted it to pieces and wiped everyone out." 

"I don't know if it's any better," Kan said, "but they're more likely to have enslaved the population than killed everyone." 

"That's really not comforting." 

"Sorry." 

They ate their meal packs in silence for a bit. After a while, Matt asked, "If you don't mind me asking, how is it that you don't know about Earth? That you've never seen a human?" 

Kan considered lying, or just saying that he didn't want to answer. He wasn't used to discussing his past, or lack of it. But he intended to ask Matt for a lot of information, so it was only fair to offer this piece of himself back in return. 

"I might have seen humans before," he said, "I just don't remember it. I was found by the Blade of Marmora, floating in space half-frozen in a suit that had run out of oxygen. By the time they got me to medical attention, large parts of my brain had been badly damaged. They were able to regenerate growth of the cells to restore my cognitive functions, but I was left without any memories of my life before they found me. At least, I assume they restored my cognitive functions. It's possible they only managed a partial repair and I'm actually severely limited compared to how I was before I was oxygen-deprived. No one had another one of my species to run a comparison against." 

"You don't seem like you have permanent brain damage," Matt said. "My field was microbiology not the neurosciences, so I can't be sure, but you don't seem to have any loss of motor control and given that you're talking about cognitive functions your language skills don't see to have taken much of a hit. Also, you don't seem to have any problems with disorientation or short term memory loss. Those would be the obvious signs. So there could be some impairment, but I think you're OK." 

"That's good to know." 

"So you don't have any idea how you ended up drifting in space?" 

"None at all," Kan said. It was still a mystery and one he wasn't sure would ever be solved. "What about you? How did you end up a slave on a Galran research base?" 

"I was a scientist on my world, part of a space exploration mission to the edge of our solar system, further away from Earth than anyone had ever gone before. There were three of us: me, my dad, and a guy named Shiro. A Galra ship was patrolling near our solar system and picked up our presence. It was the first time anyone from Earth had ever seen an alien, as far as I know, and we were just taken prisoner in about two seconds flat. We hadn't planned for anything like this so we didn't have any weapons to fight back with or anything. They questioned us about our mission and then decided to keep us as slaves." 

"How long ago was this?" 

"I don't know. It feels like forever. After a while you stop counting the days. It's been maybe a year or two in Earth time. I don't know how that would compare to whatever time measurements you're used to. I don't even know if the others are alive. I'm pretty sure Shiro's dead - he was made a gladiator and sent up against a fighter no one had ever beaten - but my dad might still be out there somewhere, a slave somewhere in the Empire. I thought... when you got me off that station, I thought maybe I'd have a chance to look for my dad." 

Matt's voice shook a little. Kan looked away from him, staring down at his hands and the food he held. He resumed eating, swallowing down the mouthfuls of nutrients and wondering what he could offer. He couldn't promise to save Matt's dad. He couldn't even promise to look for him. The Blade of Marmora fought against the Empire, but they didn't go on missions to free slaves and prisoners, not unless it helped serve their overall purpose. They survived by secrecy and randomly freeing slaves would just mean there was more information about them out there for Zarkon to find, more chance that they would be exposed and destroyed. They walked a fine line between helping people and staying hidden, with Kolivan erring on the side of staying hidden on the grounds that they could help no one if they were destroyed. 

Kan finished his food and tore the tab off the water container that had come with it, drinking it down gladly. He offered the spare one to Matt. It wasn't much of an apology for not being able to help reunite him with his family, but it was something he at least could give. While Matt finished the water, Kan demonstrated the cleaning unit that was built into the wall, with its openings for their bodily waste and the disinfectant wipes to keep themselves clean. 

"It's not a hot shower," Matt said, "but I'll take it." 

Kan turned his back to give Matt a little privacy while he cleaned himself with the wipes and changed into the clothes Kan had requisitioned for him. 

"I need to rest," Kan said. He grabbed the extra bedding he'd brought. "You can take the bunk. I'll just make do on the floor." 

He started stripping off his armoured suit, unclipping the sword from its sheath so he could keep it close at hand. He undressed down to the thin undergarments he wore beneath his armour. He didn't bother with other clothes for sleeping, since it would be quicker to prepare for battle if he didn't have to remove unnecessary items. It had never mattered before since he'd never had anyone in his room to see him in his near naked state. Now Matt stared at the walls while Kan undressed, leaving Kan wondering if there was strict taboos against showing skin on their world. This probably wasn't the time to ask. 

"It's fine," Matt said while Kan undressed. "You don't have to give me your bed. I'll take the floor." 

"I'm the reason you're a prisoner here. You can have the bunk." 

"I've been sleeping in Galran cells for god knows how long." 

"All the more reason for you to have a real bed now." 

"Honestly, I'll probably sleep better on the floor. It's closer to what I'm used to." 

Kan stopped arguing. He really was tired after the exertion of his mission and he wasn't going to give up his bed if Matt didn't want it. He'd tried to do the right thing at least. He handed Matt the covering and pillow and then settled down in his bunk to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes mention of rape and pregnancy by rape - but not in any detail and there's no rape that actually occurs in the story.

Kan dreamt of flying, feeling controls under his hands and watching a planet race by through the window of some strange craft. He felt the movements of the craft so clearly that he could almost feel the rush of air outside, as though the craft were a part of him, or he a part of it. There was a sense of belonging, a sense of home, when he flew, like he was exactly where he needed to be. 

He woke at a sound of movement nearby and reached instantly for his sword, hand closing around the hilt. 

"Woah! It's just me." 

In the dim light, Kan saw Matt. He'd been sitting on the pile of bedding, getting dressed. Kan had been careful to avoid looking when Matt had been getting clean, but now he saw the scarring on the other human's leg from some old injury. He wondered if there were other scars now hidden by cloth, other marks from his time as a slave. The scar that was most obvious wasn't on his skin though, but in the way Matt had frozen in place, staring at the sword in obvious fear. His hands were raised in a gesture of surrender that seemed almost second-nature to him. 

"Sorry," Kan said. He set the sword down. "You startled me." 

"Obviously." Matt took a moment, watching Kan carefully in case of further threats, and then reached for his clothes to finish dressing. "I didn't mean to wake you." 

"Don't worry about it." Kan felt he had to say that because Matt clearly was still worried, and he had every reason to be. After all, Kan was still a captor to him, and Matt had spent far too long seeing what captors were willing to do to their prisoners. Kan had to show him that he wasn't like those of the Empire. He'd start by explaining what he was doing rather than leaving Matt to wonder and worry. He remembered how scary it had been when he'd first woken up here and everything had been strange and unknown. He'd tried to navigate through situations that everyone else took for granted, afraid of doing something wrong, and that had been without the weight of memories of punishment that Matt presumably carried around with him. 

"I have to report in to Kolivan on my mission," Kan said, standing and starting to get dressed in his armour. "On my way, I'm going to take you to the medical deck and have the attendants check out your physical condition." 

"My physical condition's fine." 

"It's not invasive or anything but it needs to be done. They'll be able to check for malnutrition, see if there are any nutrients you didn't get from the food you got as a slave. I promise, you won't be hurt. When I'm done with Kolivan I'll pick you up and we can get some breakfast." 

"OK." 

Kan strapped his sword to his back and led the way out into the base. 

"Stay with me," Kan said, "until we reach medical. Once you're there, don't go wandering off and do whatever the attendants tell you." 

"I've had a lot of practice doing what I'm told." 

Kan ignored the bitterness in Matt's tone and said, "Good." 

Kan hoped that no one on duty this morning looked to visibly Galran. Fortunately it was Maises on duty. Her mother had been a Jorranic slave raped by one of the Galran soldiers who invaded her world, but aside from her colouring, she more closely resembled her mother in appearance. Horns curled down from the side of her head, framing her purple face, and the six limbs showed she wasn't anything close to pure Galra. It was enough that Matt wasn't instantly alarmed, which Kan was grateful for. He would worry about introducing Matt to Kolivan once he'd got used to the others here. Galra soldiers weren't known for their restraint when dealing with slaves and captives. Most of the couplings between two different species just resulting in suffering for the poor rape victim, but every once in a while there would be a child. Most of them were outcasts on their own worlds for too closely resembling the invaders, but refused full citizenship by the Galran Empire for being impure. Eventually, a lot of them ended up joining the ranks of the Blade of Marmora. Those that weren't brutally killed by one side or another, at least. It was one of the reasons why the symbol for the Blade of Marmora resembled half of the official Galra crest. Maises was one of those fortunate enough that her mother hadn't abandoned her and had in fact educated her and then helped smuggle her off the planet, and now she worked as a medical attendant for their warriors. 

Kan left Matt in her capable claws and went to make his report to Kolivan. He stuck to the truth for the most part, though he altered the order of events slightly to suggest that Matt had picked up a fallen gun and shot a guard _before_ Kan had decided to rescue him. 

Kolivan listened to the report carefully, verifying details about the lab that Kan had found the cloaking device in and his actions to destroy any information the Empire might have gained from it. When they were done, he fixed Kan with a serious look. 

"I understand your desire to find out who you are," he said, "but you made a commitment to the Blade of Marmora. That commitment includes following our rules about secrecy and not bringing strangers back to our base." 

"I'll make sure he's not a risk." 

"Good. Since this is your first infraction, there won't be a punishment so long as you keep him under control and don't let him become a risk." His tone suggested that punishment would definitely be an issue if this should happen again, but Kan doubted he would ever face the same circumstances. 

"Yes, sir. Thank you." 

"And don't let his presence distract you from our purpose," Kolivan added. 

"I won't." 

"You're dismissed." 

Kan bowed his head in acknowledgment and started for the door. 

"And, Kan," Kolivan called. Kan paused, wondering what other criticism his leader might have for him. "Well done on the successful completion of your first mission." 

"Thank you, sir." 

Kan fought back a smile as he left. Kolivan's praise was rarely offered and to be savoured when it came. The words filled him with a bubbling warmth that seemed to lift him up and make him float down the corridors. He was still feeling cheerful as he walked into the medical room and saw Matt on the floor, being pinned down by Antok. Matt's arm was being twisted up his back to the edge of dislocation and he was crying out in pain. 

"Hey!" Kan charged into the room, already reaching for his sword. "Get off him!" 

"Your prisoner tried to stab me with a surgical tool," Antok said. He growled low. 

Kan aimed his sword at Antok, "I said, get off him." 

Antok's mask was down, showing a face that betrayed his Galra heritage. Like Maises, he was only half Galra, but, aside from his tail, his features a bore a lot more evidence of that side of his genetics. Matt must have panicked when he saw someone who looked like a Galra walk in. 

"You were told to keep him under control," Antok said. He twisted Matt's arm a little further which elicited a yelp of pain. 

"Did he actually injure you?" Kan asked. He was confident he knew what the answer would be. Antok was one of the Blade's best warriors and fully armoured. Matt was a former slave with no combat training and no real weapon. Antok probably disarmed him in the space of a heartbeat. 

"He tried," Antok said, but that was an admission. It was the opening Kan needed. 

"He's mine. If he didn't injure you, you don't have the right to injure him." 

"The right?" Antok snarled. He was off Matt in an instant, rushing at Kan. Kan brought the flat of his blade around against Antok's arm to block the first strike, but Antok was too fast. He caught Kan's arm and twisted, whole body moving in a synchronous attack. He forced the blade out of the way and slammed his shoulder into Kan's chest, foot hooking around Kan's leg. Kan tried to step sideways to get some room to maneuver, but Antok used his arm as a lever. Kan got in one good strike to Antok's neck but then a knee slammed into his stomach. In the instant that he gasped in pain, Antok was on him, forcing him face first into the ground. 

Somehow, through all of it, Antok had kept his hold on Kan's sword arm. He squeezed tightly enough that if Kan hadn't been wearing his armoured suit there would probably have been shattered bones. Kan's fingers lost their hold on the sword and it clattered onto the ground. Antok twisted the limb back further, putting pressure on Kan's elbow until he thought the joint might snap out of place. 

"Do you yield, boy?" Antok asked. 

Kan glared at the floor in front of his face. He didn't yield at once even though Antok could probably snap him in two, armour or no armour. He didn't want to be seen as weak by surrendering the second he went down, but Antok moved his arm just a tiny distance, almost immeasurable, and hot pain shot from his shoulder to his elbow. 

"Alright. I yield." 

Antok let go of his arm. "Keep your pet under control. If he attacks someone again, I will enjoy teaching you about obedience." 

Antok turned to Maises, who'd watched the entire fight without making a both to interfere, and told her that he needed a portable med kit for a mission. Kan waited until Antok had left the room before pushing himself up off the ground, retrieving his fallen sword, and hurrying to Matt, who was huddled on the floor next to the examination bed. Kan crouched in front of him, checking him up and down for signs of blood of damage. There was no visible injury. 

"Are you OK?" Kan asked, reaching out a hand towards him. Matt jerked away from from the touch. His eyes were full of fear again, but there was anger too. He glared at Kan. 

Kan wanted to snap that Matt had brought this on himself. He'd warned Matt that hurting members of the Blade of Marmora was against the rules and would result in punishment. And why had Matt attacked Antok of all people? Of everyone on this base, Antok was the toughest to beat in a fight and the least forgiving. Kan had been training hard since the day he'd woken up here and he'd never come close to defeating Antok, so what hope would someone like Matt have? 

But yelling wouldn't help. Matt was scared and confused right now. Kan remembered what that had felt like and forced his own temper in check. 

"Did he hurt you?" Kan asked. When Matt didn't answer, Kan prompted, "Matt?" 

"I'll survive," Matt said. He was holding his arm clutched against his chest, but there didn't seem to be any obvious injuries. Antok had enough skill to know what would cause pain without breaking someone. Kan wanted to ask Maises to examine him again, but he also didn't want to push the issue. 

"Let's get some food." Kan stood and offered a hand to help Matt up. Matt ignored the hand and grabbed hold of the edge of the examination bed to pull himself to his feet before cradling his hurt arm once again. 

Maises took a step forward and said, "I've entered him into the system so that he could requisition his own rations." 

"Thanks." 

Kan would come back later to discuss Matt's medical results in more detail. For now, he wanted to get them both out of here. He put a hand on Matt's shoulder, tried not to notice the way Matt flinched at his touch, and then guided him out of the room. 

Kan wondered if he ought to apologise. He had promised that no one would hurt Matt and someone had, even if it had been a result of Matt's own actions. Kan didn't want the only person he'd ever met of his own species to hate him but it was clear that was what would happen if he let things continue. 

"I'm sorry about Antok," he said. "He's probably the worst person around here for you to try and attack." 

"He's Galra," Matt said, voice low and angry. 

"Half Galra. You didn't notice his tail?" 

"What's a Galra doing here?" 

"We fight against the Empire," Kan explained, "but a lot of the people here have some Galra DNA in them. The Galra have invaded half the galaxy, plundering and enslaving as they go, and sometimes that involves, well, rape of the local populations. It's rare for two species to have a child together but it happens. It doesn't make the child evil because one of the parents did an evil thing." 

Matt glowered at him. "That guy seemed pretty evil to me." 

"Antok's... He's bad tempered but he's not all bad." Kan wondered about telling the story of his first mission for the Blade of Marmora and how Kan had become overwhelmed in a fight and Antok had come to help him, taking a gunshot to the side as he shielded Kan. Antok had snarled and growled about it, insulting Kan for his inability to fight, but he'd still saved his life. Kan would probably never like Antok but it was hard to hate him after that. 

They reached the dispensary and Kan went over to the machine to request his meal pack. He showed Matt the controls and had Matt press his hand to the scanner to receive his own allocated food. As a prisoner, Matt was only entitled to request food and water, and only his allocated ration, but at least Matt wouldn't have to rely on Kan to get everything for him. 

They went to one of the tables and sat. This place was pretty quiet right now, but there were a couple of fighters sitting at the other side of the room, talking quietly. Matt studied them, taking in the colouring and the shape of their features, no doubt noticing the Galra traces in them too. 

"We're not like the Empire here," Kan said. "Yes, a lot of people here are part Galra, but we fight against Zarkon." 

"You still think it's OK to imprison me even though I haven't done anything to you." 

Kan couldn't argue with that point. He couldn't even say that Matt's status as a prisoner might not be forever, because that would invalidate any future tests of trust. Kan knew he was hurting Matt by keeping him here, knew that Matt wanted to be out there looking for the others of his kind that the Empire had captured with him, but he also knew he wasn't going to let Matt leave just yet. An apology felt hollow, so he just ate. 

They finished the food in silence and then Kan stood. 

"I have to train," he said. "You can come with me or I can take you back to my quarters." 

Matt was silent for long enough that Kan thought he wasn't going to answer, but eventually he said, "I'll wait in your quarters." 

So Kan showed him the way back and sealed him inside once again because heading to the training room. He'd been skilled with a sword even when he'd arrived, though he had no memory of ever learning to use one, but his skills had been nothing compared to most of the members of the Blade of Marmora. He'd been training every day since then, trying to improve, trying to be a strong as possible for the battle against Zarkon. 

The other warriors of the Blade trained just as diligently, so Kan wasn't the only one working the training room when he arrived. He ran through some exercises and routines before agreeing to spar with Eedun, one of the older warriors. Eedun wasn't as fast or strong as many of the others, but he could read a fight in a heartbeat and moved instinctively into techniques half the fighters here had never even heard of. Practicing with him was excellent training. They sparred with swords for a while and then went hand to hand, before Eedun suggested Kan wield his sword with his non-dominant hand in case he was injured in battle and still had to fight. 

Kan had no doubt that Eedun could have taken him down as quickly as Antok had back in the medical room, but the sparring lasted long enough to leave him breathless and drenched in sweat. Eedun pushed him to his limits but held back his own ability enough to make the session last. There were few people Kan liked to train with as much as he did Eedun, and he longed for a few scant words of praise from the old warrior. 

Instead, when Eedun announced they were done his words were, "You're unfocused today." 

"I'm sorry." 

"Don't be sorry. Be focused. You can't let yourself be distracted in a fight." 

Eedun probably meant for that to be the end of the conversation, but Kan's thoughts hadn't been on the fight, they'd been on the way Matt had cringed back from him when he'd been hurt, and the hatred and anger that filled his eyes, his sharp words over their meal. Kan wanted to make things better, but he didn't know how to. There was a chance, with all that Eedun had seen and done, that the old warrior might have so ideas. 

"It's Matt," Kan said. 

"Your new prisoner?" 

"Yeah. He thought I was rescuing him but instead I just made him a prisoner somewhere else and he hates me for it. Plus he tried to attack Antok because Antok looks like a Galra and so Antok hurt him, even though I'd promised Matt he wouldn't be hurt, so he basically knows that I can't keep my promise to keep him safe. I don't know what to do." 

"You want him to not hate you?" 

"Yeah." 

"Then free him." 

"Then Kolivan would kill me." 

"Then you've made your choice," said Eedun. 

"That's really not helpful." 

"If you want help not exposing your right side when you fight with your non-dominant hand, then come to me. For your prisoner, I don't have any advice for you. You took away his hope of freedom. It's natural that he would hate you." 

As unhelpful as that was as advice, Eedun might actually have a point. Kan wanted Matt to like him, but that was virtually impossible as long as Kan was acting as his jailor. Kan should just accept that. He could accept his place as captor rather than friend and simply try to be a more compassionate captor than the Galran Empire had been. If he proceeded on the assumption that nothing he did would prevent Matt hating him and it would no longer sting so much when he saw hostility in those eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

When Kan returned to his quarters, he found Matt sitting in the corner of the room, legs tucked up in front of his chest and head resting on his knees. Matt looked up but didn't otherwise move. Kan nodded to the chair. 

"You're allowed to sit there," he said. 

"I figured you might think I was trying to break into your computer and have one of your Galra friends beat me up." 

"You wouldn't be able to access the computer. You're not authorised." 

Kan saw the way Matt's eyes flicked away from his at those words. He was pretty confident that if he checked the logs, he'd find that Matt had tried to get into the computer and already discovered that he was locked out. 

"It wouldn't do me much good anyway," Matt said. "I don't read Galran." That confirmed what Kan suspected. The warning notifications would show up in Galran script. "Why did you bother bringing me from that space station just to stash me in here? Do you get some pleasure out of knowing that I'm being bored to death in yet another cell?" 

Kan hadn't considered Matt's boredom, but there really wasn't anything to do in here without access to the computer. He should have thought about that before leaving the human alone for several hours while he trained. He tried to console himself with the fact that he'd offered to take Matt with him, but it wasn't much use. Matt was his responsibility and he should be doing a better job of thinking about his needs. This was just another reason for Matt to hate him. 

Rather than reply, Kan went over to the computer and pressed his hand to the console. The screen lit up for him. Kan navigated to the user profile options, struggling a little himself as he had to translate the Galran writing, and created a new account, granting access to a few specific programs. He carefully went through the list of what was available and only selected those that Kolivan couldn't possible have an issue with him sharing. 

"Come here," Kan said. Matt glared at him and didn't move. "Alright. If you don't want access to my computer, you don't have to have it." 

Matt continued glaring, but now he stood. He placed his hand against the scanner when Kan indicated he should. 

"I'm not giving you access to the base's systems," Kan said, "but there are some video files on here. Some are Galran propaganda shows, so I can't speak for their quality, but there are also some educational videos." He showed Matt where to access the files and how to navigate through the menu. The text was written in the Galran script though so Matt would have to guess what each one was. To help with that problem, Kan brought up another program. "This is a language education program. It's aimed for children and a bit repetitive at times, but it's a game that teaches you the basic characters and their meanings." Everything Kan knew about written Galran, he'd learned from this game. 

Matt looked at Kan in surprise, then said, "Thanks." 

Kan hadn't expected to be thanked, so he shrugged it away. 

"You were right. I didn't give you anything to do and I should have done. I'm not trying to be cruel." 

"Well, the language game will probably be useful." Matt looked nervous, chewing his lip slightly as he thought about something. After some moments, he said, "My sister always loved computer games. Well, anything to do with computers really." 

"Tell me." 

Kan had wanted to hear about Earth, about the race he came from. He was glad Matt wanted to tell him something. Maybe Matt didn't want them to be enemies either and this was his way of making peace. Matt sat down on the bunk while Kan used the console chair, and he started talking about his family. He told stories about his little sister who loved figuring out how things worked, who started playing with electronics kits before she'd learned to read properly, and who had an instinctive grasp of technology, understanding things without needing them to be explained to her. 

"She always talked about the elegance of systems. If something was efficiently designed, she would talk about it like it was a work of art. Dad always said she was going to save the world someday, that she'd invent a machine that would save lives in some miraculous way." 

"But you said you were a biologist?" 

"Yeah. I preferred living things. To me, there's an elegance in life. You sometimes get weird quirks of evolution, features that have lingered from ancient ancestors that no longer make sense, but if you look at those quirks, you can see where a species came from. You can look back in time and figure out what their ancestors were like. I specialised in microbiology and xenobiology. Of course, all the xenobiology was entirely theoretical when I was doing my degree." 

"I don't know what that word means," Kan admitted. 

"It translates as 'biology of foreigners' meaning foreign to our planet. We'd never encountered anyone from another world, so we were trying to figure out what life on other planets might be like. That was why I went on the mission in the first place, to try and find signs of life on a world beyond our own." 

"It seems you found some." 

"Yeah. A classic case of 'be careful what you wish for'." When Kan frowned at him, Matt explained, "That's an expression on Earth. It basically means, well, things like this can happen. You want something but when it happens what you get is nothing like what you really wanted. I wanted to find signs of alien life and I ended up kidnapped and enslaved by aliens." 

Kan nodded. 

Matt stared down at his hands. His enthusiasm when he'd been talking about his sister had vanished now. 

"My dad was on the mission with me," he said, "as the leader of the expedition. Now he's either in a Galran prison or dead. Do you have any information about prisoners? Anything I can use to find him?" 

"We have some records from prisons," Kan said. "One of our scientists got captured so a spy sent us some information so we could find him, but I looked through those records for anyone that might be the same species as me. I didn't find anything." He had a standard search that ran automatically on any records that were logged on the system, not wanting to miss a chance to find out where he came from. In all the time he'd been here, it had never once flagged a real record. That wasn't promising for Matt. Kan wanted to pretend optimism, but Matt deserved better than lies. 

"There are a lot of prisons," Kan said, "and work camps and mines, not to mention those slaves who get taken onto ships and stations to work, and those that are sent to the gladiatorial games. Almost all of Galran industry is driven by slave labour. I'm sorry, Matt, but your dad could be anywhere in the galaxy." 

"But if you fight the Empire, you could help look for them. If you started attacking prisons and freeing the slaves it would undermine the whole Empire and help people all at the same time." 

"That's not how we operate. This is a secret organisation that works through spies and infiltration. We're not like Voltron, able to just attack head on." 

"What's Voltron?" Matt asked. 

Kan was surprised, though he probably shouldn't be. After all, the Galran Empire wouldn't want their slaves spreading stories of hope and uprising. Any rumours were probably squashed instantly, and it wasn't like Matt would have had a chance to hear the legends before his capture if he'd never encountered anyone from outside his planet before. Now it was Kan's turn to tell stories. 

"Voltron's a fighting force that protects people from the likes of Zarkon," Kan said. "They have a group of powerful spacecraft that can join together to form an even more powerful weapon. There are five of them, each piloted by a Paladin, someone whose job it is to go out and help people. Well, the recent reports only talk about four of them, so it's possible something happened to one of the Paladins, but the point is that they act in the open, fighting visibly against the Empire to give people hope." 

"Sounds like they're the ones actually doing something useful," Matt said. 

"We do things that are useful it's just, we have to stay secret. If Zarkon learns about us, we won't be able to help anyone." 

"Sounds like a great excuse to sit around and not actually fight." 

"If I hadn't fought, you'd still be a slave on that station." 

"Yeah, where I'd be locked up or nearly get my arm ripped off by a Galra fighter. Oh wait, that happened here." 

"You tried to attack him. You were told that hurting one of us wasn't allowed!"

"Right. OK. I'll just do what I'm told to avoid getting a beating. Like a good slave." 

Each word out of Matt's mouth made Kan more angry. He was defensive, wanting to shout down these arguments because it wasn't right for Matt to compare him to one of the Galran Empire soldiers because it wasn't the same at all. If Kan had been anything like those people he would have hit Matt round the face by now, which was the main reason Kan hadn't snapped and done just that. He was different and he was going to prove it. 

He just wasn't sure how yet. 

"Shut up," he snarled. 

"Yes, master," Matt said, the words full of venom. "Absolutely, master. You wish is my command. Should I kneel? Should I bow to the floor and kiss your boots?" 

"That is the opposite of shutting up." 

Kan really wanted to hit something but doing anything like that would just prove Matt's point and he was far too stubborn to let that happen. 

Matt kept glaring at him, but he drew his fingers across his lips and then folded his arms, staring down Kan in silence. 

"I don't understand you," Kan said. "How do you go so quickly from cowering in the corner to yelling at me and insulting me?" 

Matt opened and closed his mouth as though speaking, but no sound came out. Great. Now he was mocking Kan. 

"You're infuriating," Kan said. 

"Well so are you. You pretend to be nice but you still kidnapped me and locked me up in here. At least the Galra soldiers are honest about being monsters." 

Kan shut his eyes for a minute, trying to force his emotions back down inside. He'd finally met one of his own kind, finally got to talk to someone who was like him, and within a day that someone was calling him a monster. He'd told himself he would be alright with Matt hating him, but that wasn't true at all. Every moment spent facing that fury just made him feel sick inside. 

Kan stood. Despite the shouts and anger, Matt still flinched back from the movement. He was expecting to be hit. Kan pretended not to see and walked to the door. He paused just on the inside. 

"Enjoy the computer access," he said. "I'll see about finding you something else to do to occupy your time." 

Then he headed out and went back to the training room. He was already tired from his earlier training but he didn't care. He really needed to hurt something right now.


	5. Chapter 5

For two days, Kan and Matt had barely spoken, with Kan giving brief instructions occasionally and Matt communicating mostly through silent glares. Kan took him to get food and let him use the washroom to get clean but otherwise Matt stayed locked in the room. Kan had little choice but to treat him as a prisoner and Matt made his opinion of that very clear through his angry silence. Kan found a couple of game programs for the computer to give him a bit more to do and then tried to stay out of the way, since Matt made it clear whenever they were together that he hated him. Kan wanted to talk to him, wanted to ask about Earth and their people and Matt's life before the Galran Empire, but he didn't want to push things. If he started asking questions, Matt would probably act like it was an interrogation. He didn't want to be the evil master Matt clearly thought he was by forcing the issue. Kan knew that this couldn't continue indefinitely, but he didn't know what he was supposed to do. How could he make Matt happy when he couldn't do the one thing Matt wanted and set him free? 

So the silence dragged on and Kan spent less and less time in his room so he didn't have to face the awkwardness, even though he wasn't sure that would help things at all. On the third day, as they finished breakfast and Kan was about to take him back to the room, Matt snapped, "I can't face another day in that room." 

"What?" 

"I'm going stir crazy. I spend all day in there, staring at the walls and your computer and I can't take it anymore. I need to go somewhere different. Please." The last word was forced out like it was painful and Kan realised how difficult it must be for Matt to ask. 

"Sure," Kan said, and headed straight for the training room instead. 

Matt looked anxiously at the masked and armoured fighters, practicing alone or in groups. He looked like he was trying to watch all of them at once, like a nervous animal surrounded by predators. 

"Wait out of the way," Kan said, and gestured to the wall. Matt hurried over and stood with his back pressed against the wall where it would be easier for him to keep an eye of on everything. Kan tried to ignore Matt's eyes on him as he ran through his warmup routine, stretching and limbering before running through some practice exercises. Normally, he would either approach one of the others or wait for them to approach him so that they could spar, but this time he looked back towards Matt. He had really had any exercise since coming here and that couldn't be healthy for him. 

Kan brought his sword to his back and slotted it into its sheath. He walked over to Matt. 

"Have you ever learned how to fight?" Kan asked. Matt shook his head. "Come on. "

Matt was obviously reluctant as he left his place at the wall, but Kan found them some space and, after giving Matt a very quick warm-up, started running through the basics. He showed Matt how to make a fist so that he wouldn't break the bones in his own hand when he hit something, and explained some key principles such as diverting attacks rather than trying to block them. 

"If someone like Antok were to throw a punch straight at you," Kan said, "there would be a lot of force behind it. Even if you get something in the way as a block, that power's going to still be coming straight at you. You could get as injured from blocking it as you might if it connected. It's a lot safer and takes a lot less strength for you to divert the blow to one side or the other than to bring it to a stop." 

"Conservation of momentum," Matt said, with a nod. "Basic physics." 

"Let's try it." 

Kan threw a few slow punches, letting Matt block the blows, pushing Kan's arms to one side or the other so that his fists didn't connect. After a little while, Kan increased his speed just a little, forcing Matt to react. It didn't take long for Matt to be sweating and breathing hard, even though Kan felt like he'd barely started. Matt wasn't used to this exercise like Kan was and all that time as a slave on minimal rations had probably not been good for his health. Kan decided not to push too hard, in the interest of not making Matt hate him any more than he already did. 

"Take a short break," Kan said, indicating the water dispenser, and then he went to find someone to spar with who would actually give him a challenge. 

Dorna and Jud had been watching the lesson with amusement and they quickly joined Kan. They were Blade warriors who'd come to this fight together and were rarely apart. They trained together and went on missions together and were so often in the same place that most of the inhabitants of the base tended to think of them as a single unit. 

"At this pace," Jud said, "he'll be ready to fight in the war by the time Zarkon dies of old age." 

"Everyone started as a beginner," Kan said. "Now, do you want to give me some two-on-one practice?" 

The fight was short and brutal. Kan got in a few good moves to begin with, but then the two came in with a synchronised attack and Kan was only able to evade Jud. He failed to block Dorna, who dealt a blow across Kan's ribs with enough force that he thought he felt something crack. After that disaster early on that left him struggling to breathe against the pain, there was no way he could stand a chance. He managed to keep going for a while, but it was obvious he wasn't going to hold his own today. Kan had to focus on keeping his side shielded because another blow to his ribs might end him, which left his upper body and legs exposed. Jud went for his neck while Dorna attacked his legs and Kan ended up on the ground, writhing in pain. The impact of his body against the floor sent new waves of agony through him. 

"Yield," he gasped. Dorna and Jud stepped back instantly, but Kan just lay there for a minute, a hand clutched to his side. 

Every breath burned. It was somehow worse now that he wasn't focused on the swords flying at him. He had nothing to focus on but the agony that seemed to rise to new levels every time his rib cage expanded or contracted. He knew he had to get up, had to move, but even the thought of moving seemed to cause a new surge of pain. His entire side was on fire. 

"Are you OK?" Matt had left the wall and come over to him, frowning down at him. Kan nodded. Actually talking would involve breathing. The other Blade warriors had already returned to their own training. No one except Matt was paying attention to him. No one would coddle him in his injury. If he couldn't cope with his own pain, he wasn't worthy of being one of them. 

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, took a moment to adjust to that, and then forced himself to his feet. The movement wasn't as bad as he'd feared. It still hurt so badly he wanted to scream but the pain was bad enough anyway that the movement couldn't really increase it much. He told himself that this was good practice. He needed to demonstrate that he would continue to fight even when injured, because a real opponent wouldn't just let him yield. Keeping going would be a good lesson, but Kan knew he couldn't face another sparring match. 

"Let's keep going," Kan said. "Practice punching me and I'll block." 

"Are you sure? You look like you're barely staying on your feet right now." 

"I'm sure. Just don't aim for my ribs." He was confident enough that Matt's punches wouldn't be much of a threat but he didn't want to risk letting one through. Even a weak punch against his injured side would be unthinkable. So Matt threw a punch at Kan's head, the movement slow and signposted. Kan used a twisting block to push the blow to one side. Matt punched again with his left hand. 

Kan was fairly sure that Matt was going slower than he was capable of, but he was not going to argue mostly because arguing would involve talking. Kan tried to focus on the blows, pouring his attention into the fists coming towards him so he didn't think about the fact that his lungs were screaming at him. He ground his teeth together to keep his cries of pain inside and started counting the punches. 

When he got to a hundred, that would be enough. When he had blocked that many, he would have proved that he could keep fighting even through an injury. Ninety-five now. He would have proved to himself that he was resilient, that he was stronger than his pain. He counted punch after punch, blocking each one and adding it to his total. Only eighty more to go, then only seventy. He was sweating harder than Matt now and it wasn't from exertion. Matt's blows were slow enough that an infant could block them, but still he pressed on. He wasn't going to yield to himself. Only fifty more. 

The last few punches seemed to last forever. Kan almost thought Matt was slowing down just to torment him, but Matt didn't know about the promise he'd made to himself. At last, Kan blocked the hundredth punch. 

"That's enough," Kan said. 

"Oh thank god. You look like you're about to pass out." 

"I'm going to go to medical now." 

As he moved to the door, Matt stuck close to his side. Kan almost thought Matt might put an arm round him to hold him up, but that was unnecessary. Kan's legs were perfectly fine, it was just everything else that was in agony. 

"Why didn't you stop earlier?" Matt asked as they reached the elevator. 

Kan really didn't want to talk, but after all the silence recently, he wanted to give an answer. "A real enemy wouldn't stop because I was hurt. I have to be able to fight through the pain." 

"There's something wrong with you, you know." 

"Yeah. My ribs." 

"No, I mean there's something wrong with all of you. You got hurt and the... guys?... people who hurt you just left you there. They didn't even try to help or check that you were OK." 

Kan wasn't sure how to explain that this was just how it was here. If Jud and Dorna had fussed about his injury, it would have been a way of saying that they didn't think he was tough enough to cope on his own. It would have been a sign that they thought he was weak and he would have found it insulting. But putting that into words would take too long and Kan really didn't want to face that much talking. 

The elevator reached the correct level and Kan started walking again. Matt trailed behind him into the medical room. Thankfully, it was Maises on duty again. 

"Training injury?" she asked. Kan nodded, and started to remove the armoured suit from his torso. He gritted his death against fresh pain as he stretched to reach the fastenings, almost crying as he pulled the tight suit from his body. Maises didn't do him the indignity of offering to help, just let him get on with it. When Kan was finally stripped to his waist, he got onto the examination bed as indicated. He closed his eyes and lay there, trusting Maises to make the hurt go away. 

Maises placed the scanner over him and activated it, hmming for a minute about the results. 

"Yes," she said, "you've got a crack to the bone." 

Kan was almost relieved, because it meant he wasn't acting like this for a minor injury. If she'd told him he was just bruised, he would have felt humiliated for being so distressed at the pain. 

Maises moved the scanner away and brought out a regenerator unit, placing it over his side and hooking it up to the bed. As she turned it on, it felt like soothing coolness was flowing into his body, easing the burning fire in his flesh. 

"Breathe deeply," Maises told him. Kan drew in a deep breath, deeper than any he'd managed since the blow, and found the pain tolerable. He breathed out again and focused on the rhythm. There was still a throbbing pain in his side, especially as he breathed in, but the anesthetic effects of the regenerator were helping. 

Beside him, Matt asked, "What does this thing do?" 

"It stimulates the body's naturally healing to speed up the recovery from an injury," Maises answered. 

"Yes, but how does it do that? How does it work?" 

Kan zoned out as Maises answered, focusing on breathing and how nice it was to just exist without being in intense pain. Maises talked about the stimulation of new cell creation and energy flows, with Matt not only listening but asking questions, wanting to know more. He wanted to know how the machine worked on different species, since people from different planets would probably have very different healing mechanisms. He talked about how even on his world, some species had the ability to regenerate a severed limb while others couldn't, and he wanted to know how the regenerator would interact with those mechanisms. He wanted to know if there were species who were so different that the regenerator couldn't help them. 

It occurred to him, as Matt's words washed over him, that this was Matt's specialist area, or one of them. He had been a scientist who was trained in the subject of other species' biology. As he talked to Maises, wanting to understand the details of how everything worked, he sounded like a scientist again. 

He sounded happier than he'd ever been while talking to Kan.


	6. Chapter 6

Kan went to see Kolivan, timing his visit to when he knew Antok would be in the training room because he wanted to have this conversation without that brute's opinions. He waited for the invitation to enter Kolivan's quarters and walked inside. The leader of the Blade of Marmora had been working at his console, but he stood to face Kan, showing no obvious sign of annoyance at being interrupted. Kan was glad of that; he didn't want to start this conversation with Kolivan in a bad mood. 

"I wanted to talk to you about Matt," Kan said. 

"Your prisoner? Has he tried attacking someone else?" 

"No. And he only attacked Antok because he was freaking out about him looking like a Galra shortly after being rescued from a Galran prison." 

"You should have prepared him for the sight." 

Kan bit down on any further arguments, like pointing out that Antok hadn't received so much as a scratch. He wanted to stay on Kolivan's good side. "You're right. I'm sorry. It was my mistake for not telling him what to expect." 

Kolivan nodded. "So why do you want to speak about him?" 

"I want to give him something useful to do. He's getting bored as a prisoner so I thought we could give him some work that would be beneficial to the Blade and keep him occupied." 

Kolivan considered. "I don't approve of slavery, but he could be offered a choice to work if he wants. I'm sure we could find something for him to do that won't compromise our secrecy." 

"He should work in medical." 

"What?" 

"He's a scientist, or at least he was before he was captured by the Empire. He trained in biology, specifically in the differences between species from different worlds. With a bit of training on our equipment, he could become a medical attendant." 

"You want me to authorise a prisoner to work with our most vulnerable members? After he's already tried to injure one of them?" 

"I explained about what happened with Antok, that won't happen again. This way, he can be a great help to us, and it would be a good test to see if he can be trusted." 

Kolivan frowned at him. "A test? You want him to go through the trials?" 

"Not to become a member, but to see if he could be trusted enough to keep our secrets if he were to leave." 

If Kan were to set him free. 

"Have you talked to him about this?" 

Kan wasn't sure if Kolivan meant about working in medical or about the possibility of him being set free, but he said, "No," as the answer to either case. "I didn't want to get his hopes up until I'd spoken to you. I didn't want to overstep my authority." Again. 

Kolivan considered. Kan tried not to fidget as he waited. He tried to think of other things to say, other arguments he could make, even though he knew his best approach right now was to let Kolivan think it over. He didn't want to be seen as putting pressure on his leader or taking initiatives that went beyond what he was allowed to do. Kan wanted this so much for Matt, wanted Matt to have a chance to put his mind to use again properly, wanted Matt to have a choice about something that was real. So he waited for Kolivan to speak. 

"We would have to find someone willing to teach him," Kolivan said. 

"Maises seems to like him. She answered a lot of his questions while I was in there getting a broken rib healed." 

Kolivan didn't ask how he'd broken his rib, but then Kan hadn't expected him to. He hadn't expected any sign of concern or checks that the healing had been successful. The absence of such concern shouldn't have stung, but somehow it still did. 

"I will ask Maises if she would be willing. You may ask your prisoner if he wants to do this, but make sure he knows that if he harms any of my people, especially if they are looking to him for medical assistance, the punishment will be severe." Kolivan added, "The punishment would apply to you as well." 

"I understand," Kan said. He bowed his head sharply and walked out before Kolivan could say anything to undo this victory. He headed down the hallway to his own quarters and let himself in. Matt was at the computer console, the language game open but he looked almost grateful for the interruption. 

"How bored are you?" Kan asked. 

"Bored enough that I've even considered watching the gladiator fight recordings you have in your propaganda folder." 

That was bored indeed. Kan had tried watching one of the fights once and found it utterly devoid of merit. The poor slave sent in to the combat had obviously never been given training and was heavily underskilled compared to the druid's creation she'd been expected to fight. The Galran Empire clearly cared more about watching slaves get torn to shreds than a skilful battle between equals. Kan had given up on the video, sickened, and decided never to watch another. The propaganda stories were at least sometimes entertaining. 

"I've talked to Kolivan about giving you something useful to do," Kan said, "if you're interested." 

"If it's cleaning chemical erosion off engine parts, I'd rather watch the propaganda." 

"It would be working as an assistant in the medical wing." 

The surprise on Matt's face was so extreme that Kan wanted to laugh. He settled for smiling. 

"Your boss would really let me work with the medical equipment?" Matt asked. 

"As long as you understand that trying to stab anyone with a surgical tool would be punished extremely painfully. You'd probably just be patching up training injuries and you'd have to study the equipment." 

"Yes." Matt cut him off quickly, the excitement clear in his voice and face. He wanted this. Badly. 

"I'll tell Kolivan you agree then. You should probably keep on with the language training so you can read the displays on the medical equipment, but I'm glad I could save you for the propaganda videos." 

Matt's smile faded a little, "I've been wondering if I should watch the gladiator videos anyway." 

"Why would you want to do that?" Kan didn't understand how anyone could see those videos as entertainment and it was clear Matt felt the same, so he didn't understand why Matt would subject himself to them. 

"I told you about Shiro, right? He was the pilot on our mission, captured along with me and my dad. They made him a gladiator. It's possible you have a video of him fighting and I... I wondered if I should watch. If I should see how he died." 

"If you think your friend would want to have someone he cared about watching his final moments, but don't force yourself if you don't want to." 

"It's just... if I see him die, then it will make it real. I know he was scheduled to fight an opponent who'd never been defeated, so I know what the outcome must have been, but if I don't watch, if I don't _see_ him die, then I can pretend that maybe he survived somehow. I know that I nothing I do can change what happened, but it feels like as long as I don't actually watch, then there's still a chance he's alive, but if I watch him die then I'm erasing that possibility." 

This was all getting very complicated and Kan didn't have the necessary knowledge of psychology to unravel the confusion of Matt's thoughts. He thought he could understand what Matt was talking about, and why he would want to preserve hope, but it was clear that this wasn't helping him. 

"I think you should try and find the video," Kan said. 

"You do?" 

"It's your choice, but it seems like what you're doing is just prolonging the grief. If you watch and see him die, then you can mourn for your friend. You can move on. It's like you're holding a wound open rather than letting it start to close up." 

"You might be right." 

"I also might be completely wrong. I don't remember having any real friends, so I'm probably not the best person to offer advice about losing them. You do whatever you think would be best. I'm going back to Kolivan to let him know about the medical work." 

***

When Kan returned to his quarters a short while later with a bunch of medical manuals saved onto a data chip, he found Matt crying his eyes out in front of the computer console. He must have watched the fight. 

"I'm sorry," Kan started to say, but Matt turned to him, a broad chin on his face despite the tears pouring down his cheeks. 

"He survived!" Matt said. "Shiro survived. The fight no one could win, he won! I know I shouldn't be so happy because that was a long time ago and anything could have happened to him between then and now, but I was so sure he'd died in that fight and he survived so maybe there's a chance." 

Kan smiled a little because Matt's happiness was infectious but he knew how high the death rates were in the gladiator fights. He didn't want Matt to get his hope up only to lose it again. 

"Perhaps I should watch this fight," Kan said, thinking about how much he wanted to see another of his species. He hadn't watched the gladiator videos because he hated how pointlessly brutal they were. Seeing how his strength compared to the others here, he hadn't even considered that one of his kind might be in those combat fights, let alone win one. For all his efforts to find his own people, it hadn't even occurred to him to search this set of records he'd already possessed. 

Matt started up the video and Kan leaned closer to watch, wanting to see how one of his own fought. The match was a lot more balanced than the other fight Kan had tried to sit through. The opponent was clearly a lot stronger than the human Shiro, and he had a more dangerous weapon, but Shiro was quick. He spent the first few minutes of the fight dodging and evading, while his enemy wore him down. Just as Kan was thinking that this wasn't a strategy that could last very long, it became clear that Shiro had also spent those few minutes analysing. 

As the brute's energy weapon returned to him, Shiro charged in with his sword, the speed of his attack catching his enemy off guard. Shiro was quick and clearly skilled, getting inside the brute's reach to eliminate the advantage of the ranged weapon, and dealing strong blows with his sword. 

As Shiro left his enemy dead on the arena floor, the audio feed picked up the shouts and cheers of the audience. One word rose from the tumult, repeated over and over, growing louder as others picked up the chant: "Champion!" 

Kan's breath froze for a minute. 

He'd heard about Kolivan arguing with Ulaz regarding a gladiator called the Champion. Ulaz had exposed himself and been forced to sacrifice his important position inside one of the command ships because he'd acted without authorisation to free Champion. Kolivan had been furious to lose such a crucial spy but Ulaz was convinced that Champion was behind the reappearance of Voltron and thought the risk had been worth it. 

"What is it?" Matt asked, as Kan stared at the screen, which was now locked in a frozen image of Shiro at the end of the video. 

"I need to check some files," Kan said. He didn't want to tell Matt was he suspected, and not just because revealing information about their operations to an outsider was against the rules. He didn't want to give Matt hope in case it was smashed to nothing by reality, but there was a chance Matt wasn't delusional about Shiro's chances for survival. It was possible that Matt's friend was connected to Voltron.


	7. Chapter 7

While Matt was having his first session as a medical assistant, Kan went through the gladiator match videos, searching for any reference to Champion. He found dozens of videos, which he opened in turn. He didn't bother with watching the fights themselves, just skimmed through the recordings to the end to see who the victor was. Over and over, Shiro went into battle against Galran warriors or the druids' creations, and each time he survived, although not always unharmed. 

In one fight, a clawed creature had tried to blind him and left a deep cut across his face. Fortunately, Shiro had dodged backwards in time that the wound had been below his eyes so he'd been able to see to finish the fight, but blood had been gushing down his face from the injury and later videos showed the scar across his face. In the last file Kan had, a huge, monstrous beast had fallen on Shiro's arm as it died, with the full force of his weight landing on the limb, splintering bone with a crack that resounded through the arena. Shiro had taken down his opponent, but he still screamed in agony as his limb was trapped beneath the weight of a creature several times his size. 

There were no more recordings after that, no more references to the Champion in fights, so Kan went into the Blade's files instead and dug out the report Ulaz had made. The details all fit. Ulaz talked about how Champion had been taken from the cells to be fitted with a prosthetic limb after a combat injury and how he'd used that opportunity to encode information in the limb and free Champion. 

Ulaz had concluded his report with the information that the blue lion of Voltron had been found on Champion's home planet. His belief was that Champion was now a Paladin of Voltron, or at the very least had helped the people of his world find the blue lion. Ulaz wanted the Blade of Marmora to make contact with Voltron, to form an alliance against Zarkon, but Kolivan had said that the secrecy of their organisation was too important. Ulaz hadn't received an official punishment for his infraction, but he had been sent on another mission to monitor a communications post, where hopefully he would have less opportunity to oppose the group's leader. Kolivan had refused Ulaz's suggestions and continued with their mission, for the most part, as though Voltron weren't a factor. 

All this had happened long before Kan had been rescued by the Blade of Marmora, so he hadn't known any of this personally. He'd never seen any information about Champion's species and he'd never even met Ulaz. Perhaps if Ulaz had been brought back to the headquarters, he would have recognised Kan as the same species as this Shiro, but he probably had no more reason to care about a rescued stranger than Kan had to care about a rogue rescue of a gladiator. 

The question he had to face now was, what did he do with this information? Kolivan was no likelier to want to ally with Voltron just because Kan might be the same species as one of the Paladins. Matt would want to know, that was obvious, but he wouldn't be content to just know there was a chance that his friend might be alive. If Kan told Matt, then Matt would be more determined that he didn't want to be a prisoner here and probably resent Kan even more than he already did for keeping him captive. Matt might try something utterly reckless like an escape attempt, which would just result in his death. Still, Kan thought he probably ought to tell Matt, to give him the hope that his friend was not only alive but fighting against Zarkon and the Empire. If nothing else, Matt would never forgive him if Kan kept this information secret and Matt found out at some future point. 

How to explain it though without giving away Blade secrets? Kan wasn't going to risk Kolivan's wrath further by providing information that he deemed unnecessary to the stranger in their midst, not if he wanted any hope of getting Matt's release approved in the future. He couldn't admit to the Blade's involvement in Shiro's rescue. 

He could say that there'd heard stories about the gladiator Champion escaping and rumours that he was linked to Voltron. He didn't need to admit that the Blade of Marmora had anything to do with it and if he framed it as rumours then Matt wouldn't expect him to have details. But then he might ask around to see if anyone else had heard anything more, and that would be worse. If it seemed like Matt was trying to get information out of them, especially about their activities against Zarkon, Antok would probably decide he was a spy. For a member of an organisation involved in espionage, Antok had very strong feelings against spies. 

Kan went through another distracted round of sparring as he tried to figure out how he should approach this situation, but managed to avoid getting any serious injuries. He'd no doubt have an interesting bruise on his arm for a while, but it wasn't anything requiring medical treatment. He still had to go to medical to pick Matt up, but he expected to just duck in and out. 

Instead, he found Matt deep in a discussion with Maises about viral infections, the immune system, and something called HIV. Kan stood in the doorway, watching, while Matt talked at length and with great excitement about how if they could duplicate the immune response of some creature Kan had never heard of then they could solve some serious disease back on Earth. 

Then Matt's eyes fell on Kan and his excitement vanished off his face in an instant. 

"Of course," Matt said, "I'll never get back to Earth to tell anyone any of this." 

That sick feeling of guilt twisted inside Kan once again as the hatred resurfaced in Matt's eyes. 

Matt continued to look miserable on the walk back to Kan's quarters. Whatever he'd been so worked up about earlier clearly only mattered so long as he thought he could help people with the knowledge and that wasn't going to happen as a prisoner of the Blade of Marmora. That was what finally made up Kan's mind. He couldn't offer him hope that he might one day get to use this information, but he could at least offer hope about Shiro. 

Once the door was sealed, he explained what he could. 

"Your friend Shiro escaped from the Empire," he said. 

"What? Are you sure?" 

"As sure as I can be. He became the gladiator Champion after that fight you thought he wasn't going to win. There were stories about how the Champion escaped when he was being taken for medical treatment after a fight." 

"So where is he now?" Matt asked. 

"I don't know. There were rumours that he might have been connected to the return of Voltron, but I don't have any solid information." 

"Who would know?" 

"No one here. Listen to me, Matt, don't ask about this. No one will be able to tell you anything helpful and if you start asking about Voltron or our sources of information or what intelligence we've managed to pick up from the Empire, well, it will go badly." 

"Worse than being imprisoned for the rest of my life unable to find out what happened to the people I care about?" 

"Yes." 

"If no one's allowed to tell me anything ever," Matt said, "then why are you telling me this?" 

"Because you deserve to know that your friend is alive. I'm sorry I can't tell you anything else." 

Matt frowned at him. "You really are sorry, aren't you?" 

"I didn't exactly plan any of this. Bringing you here was an impulse decision. I didn't think about what it would be like for you to be a prisoner here after all you've gone through. I didn't think that you might have other people you cared about. I didn't really think about any of it." 

Matt didn't say anything for a while. Kan wasn't sure his apology was going to be accepted. The hypocrisy of apologising when he didn't intend to change anything might just make Matt hate him even more. 

"Kan," Matt said at last, "you got me out of that hell. I might hate this place but it's still a lot better than where I was and you're still trying to make it better for me and I know you're not the one making the rules about me having to stay here. So thank you, for that." 

"You're welcome." 

Matt offered him a smile, a sign of friendliness that was so rarely directed at Kan. "So, do you want me to tell you about my high school prom?" 

"I have no idea what that is," Kan said. 

"It's a tradition in some parts of Earth, a celebratory party. Do you want to hear my story?" 

"Yes." 

Kan wanted to know about Earth, more than he wanted almost anything else. He'd been concerned about pushing Matt, but here was Matt suggesting it. It was a peace offering between them, a way of healing the rift that had never quite vanished. So Kan took the chair and Matt the bunk and Matt talked about themes and tuxedos and music and prom king and queen. The whole concept seemed so utterly frivolous that Kan couldn't quite wrap his head around it, but he had to wonder if he'd ever done something like this. Had he ever gone to a party with friends for no purpose except to have fun? Had he ever had friends? 

Even when he'd run out of things to say about the prom, Matt kept talking, explaining about how schooling had worked for him, the friends he'd made and the bullies he'd faced. It all seemed strange to Kan, who was used to the violence of the Blade of Marmora, where combat training was constant and inflicting pain a part of life, for the petty violence of Matt's childhood to have been such an issue. Kan wondered why Matt had never learned to fight back, but it was clear Matt found other things more important, like his studies and his scientific research. 

Matt talked about joining a group called the Garrison and training at space flight, proving his intellect in order to be chosen for a mission, and then having to deal with those who claimed he'd received preferential treatment because of who his father was. 

"I worked my ass off for that place," Matt said. "I got the top marks of anyone in my year in biology, was top five minimum in all of the other classes, and got flawless execution in simulator exercises. I could operate the ice core drill in my sleep! I made sure there was no way they could pick anyone else for the Kerberos mission, and people still said I was only on the team because my dad was the commander." 

"If you know you earned it," Kan said, "that's what's important." He knew his words were hollow though. He would give anything for Kolivan to offer praise. Knowing that he'd done well on a mission was nothing compared to hearing it from the commander. The same craving for acknowledgement when he completed a mission was clearly a trait that other humans shared. 

"You don't actually believe that, do you?" Matt asked. 

"Not really." 

Matt laughed. It was good to hear that sound. 

"There are so many good reasons why I want to go back to Earth, my family, freedom, cheeseburgers, and now apparently the fact that I might have the fundamental principles of a cure for HIV, but there's still a part of me that wants to go back and rub this in the faces of everyone who was mean to me back at the Garrison. I want to tell them that I met aliens, that I've seen things they'll never see in their wildest dreams. I want to rub my survival in their faces. I suppose that's petty of me." 

"If petty's what you need to get through it, use it. Hold onto the plan to rub it in their faces some day." 

"Assuming I'll ever get out of _this_ prison." 

Kan looked away, staring at the wall instead of Matt's face. 

"Kan? Do you think I could get out of here someday?" 

Kan forced himself to look back at Matt, "Don't ask that question." 

"That's not an answer." 

"I can't answer." 

"Meaning that there might be a way, but you're just not allowed to tell me what it is." Kan looked away again. Matt continued, "It's OK. I won't ask. Just... it's good to know that there's hope." 

"There's always hope."


	8. Chapter 8

Kan was itching for a mission but he didn't want to leave Matt alone here. Even with his new duties in medical, Matt would be alone too much of the time if Kan were to leave. Kan would have to trust someone else to ensure that Matt got food at the right times, but he couldn't expect anyone else to do things like talk to him over meals or take him to the training room for exercise. Kan imagined what would happen if one of the others took Matt to the training room and winced at the mental image. Matt would probably end up a bruised and bloody pulp on the floor because the others would treat it like a normal Blade training session and Matt had barely got the hang of keeping his guard up while he punched. Kan might have trusted someone like Eedun to stick to a level Matt could survive at, but even he would probably push Matt hard enough to hurt him. 

So Kan actually refused a suggested mission. Fortunately Kolivan seemed to understand and didn't press the issue, but it meant that Kan had to sit the action out while another team went to target the prototype ion cannon. He saw them off with a twinge of jealousy but then got on with his day, getting breakfast with Matt and then training together before dropping Matt off for his shift in medical. 

Kan took a shift going through the intercepted Empire transmissions, which was tedious work. Kolivan insisted that he couldn't use Matt as an excuse not to be useful, so Kan had to sit at a console and listen to transmission after transmission that their listening posts had forwarded through the communications bases. He would start a record playing and then add notes to the record in their archive, marking it as a standard status update, or as a personal conversation between officers, or a discussion of upcoming military action. It was important work. They couldn't have spies everywhere, so tracking all the transmissions between ships and outposts let them know what was happening across the galaxy and could tip them off to important events before the shooting started. It was just boring. For every one message that hinted at something useful, there were hundreds full of tedious trivialities, like the fact one ship was requisitioning new battery packs, or another needed to schedule refueling, and dozens more that were just the ships reporting to their command posts that the situation was normal. 

Kan was ready to claw his skin off in boredom by the time he was relieved. He went down to medical to see if Matt was ready to leave too only to find the whole place in uproar. Every bed was full, every medic was on duty, and fighters with minor injuries were getting in the way of those with critical wounds. Kan felt a rush of guilt that he'd chosen not to go on the mission. He didn't know that his presence would have changed anything, but the fact was that he was unharmed while it seemed that everyone who'd been on the team was injured to some extent or another. Two medics were working on Dorna at once, while Jud waited at their side, desperation on their face as they waited to see if their partner would live or die. 

Everyone in the room was either injured or busy dealing with the injured, except Kan. Matt saw him standing there and shoved a box of some white, gloopy substance into his hands. 

"Come here," Matt said. Kan was too surprised to question it as Matt pulled him over to one of the fighters who was well enough to still be conscious. "Apply that stuff to his wound." 

Kan had no idea what the white stuff was, he just hoped Matt did. The fighter in question had removed his upper body's armour, revealing angry red burns all over his shoulder and upper back. Normally an injury like this would result in a day or two with the regenerator units, but right now the medics were using those on fighters who seemed moments away from death. So Kan scooped out the white stuff and started spreading it over the injury. His fingers started tingling after about a minute and a little while later he couldn't feel them at all. He had to hope he wasn't doing serious damage to himself by applying this with bare hands, but the pain on his patient's face faded almost at once, so he kept going. He treated two other patients in the same way until the real medics managed to return some order to the mayhem, dismissing those whose injuries were minor enough and stablising others. 

Maises came to take over from him and saw what he was doing. She gave a look that was both amused and annoyed as she took the box of white stuff from him and sent him to clean his hands. She sighed slightly as he fumbled with the wipes, unable to pick them up with numbed fingers and then she called to Matt. 

"Help him clean up," she told Matt in an aggravated tone, "before he causes another injury for us to deal with." 

Matt hurried over and took the wipes, carefully scrubbing the good off. 

"Sorry," Matt said. "I should have given you an applicator." 

Kan dismissed the apology because he should have asked for one when he felt his fingers going numb. Besides, he was hardly in a position to complain given the state of others in this room. Dorna was still lying on one of the beds, regenerator units hooked up over half their body, while Jud hovered nervously at their side, despite a gaping wound that was still dripping blood onto the floor despite the attention it was getting. 

Maises went to help with that wound, but Jud tried to get her to pay more attention to Dorna. 

"Dorna is stable," Maises pointed out, "and the regenerators are working. Let me do my job." 

Jud stopped arguing and reached out to take Dorna's hand. 

"They shielded me," Jud said. "We had to take a longer route back to our ship because the sentry patrols didn't follow the standard pattern. We thought we'd left ourselves enough time to get out without being detected, but we were still onboard when the explosions started and Dorna jumped on top of me to shield me from the blasts." 

"Why didn't you just fight the sentries?" Matt asked. "I've seen you guys fight and the sentries wouldn't have stood a chance. Wouldn't it have been quicker for you to fight your way out?" 

"Because then intruder reports might have made it onto the logs and then Zarkon would know the explosions weren't accidental." 

"Right," said Matt. "Your stupid secrecy rules again." 

"Our stupid secrecy rules are the reason those ion cannons aren't installed on every warship in the Empire," Jud snapped. 

Matt flinched away from the display of anger, but he didn't back down. He said, "I don't understand." 

"Nor should you," said a voice from the doorway. Kolivan walked in. "The details of this mission are restricted to members of our organisation. Kan, take your prisoner so I can debrief the mission team." 

"Yes, sir," said Kan. He tried to take hold of Matt's arm but ended up just whacking his hand against Matt's bicep and failing to grip anything. Matt rolled his eyes and just moved towards the doorway anyway, skirting past Kolivan as carefully as possible. They walked together back towards Kan's quarters. 

Matt had to hold Kan's hand to the manipulate the door controls after the second time Kan fumbled and pressed the wrong button. Kan was glad Matt didn't say anything about his stupidity at using the numbing agent so long without an applicator. He just had to hope the effects would wear off quickly. At least Maises hadn't seemed at all concerned about it, so presumably there weren't lasting effects. 

Once inside the room, Matt asked, "What did they mean about the secrecy rules meaning the ion cannon isn't on other warships?" 

"I can't tell you that," Kan said. 

"Who am I going to tell? Everyone I might ever meet is part of your stupid organisation." 

"At the moment." 

"What?" Matt stared at him in surprise and Kan knew he'd already said too much and he hadn't even started giving away secrets about their mission. 

"It doesn't matter," Kan said. "Just forget it." 

"I'm not going to forget it now that you've piqued by interest. It doesn't make sense. Why would you being secret stop Zarkon installing ion cannons?" Kan didn't answer, but Matt was clearly still thinking. "Jud was talking about not wanting to be on the security logs. He wanted to make sure that any records that got recovered didn't show sign of outside interference so it looks like the ion cannon just blew itself up." 

"Please stop talking," Kan said, aware of how close Matt was skirting to the facts and knowing that he'd be blamed for revealing secrets if Kolivan found out. 

"The Empire's built some superweapon and you want him to think it just blows up randomly so he doesn't deploy it across his ships. I'm right, aren't I?" 

Matt was almost exactly right. The thing he didn't realise was that this had happened multiple times. The first time the Blade of Marmora had discovered Zarkon's plans for the enhanced ion cannon, they'd destroyed the cannon and half the research lab. They'd destroyed two more labs and now five ships that had been installed with each new version of the prototypes. Every time, the Galran scientists went back to their research to try and find the source of the catastrophic errors. The ion cannons were perfectly functional and capable of blasting through most defensive shields, but the Empire weren't installing them on their ships because every ship that had one of these cannons installed ended up blowing up spectacularly. 

"It's pretty clever," Matt said. 

"Kolivan's not a fool," Kan said. It was as close as Kan dared come to admitting Matt was right. 

"So this is the sort of thing you do a lot of? You sabotage Zarkon's research?" 

"You know I can't tell you about the work we do." 

Matt smiled, "I'll take that as a yes." 

Anger flowed through Kan that Matt could be so clever and yet so stupid at the same time. Did he have no sense of self-preservation? The way Matt was going, he would end up with a sword at his neck for poking into things he should just leave alone. After everything Matt had gone through, why hadn't he learned that being quiet was the best way sometimes? Kan held on to his anger and snapped, "I'm serious, Matt, our work is only possible because we remain secret, because we remain invisible to the Empire. That's why Kolivan's so fixated on security. I can't tell you _anything_ about our missions." 

"Even though I already know you exist and there's no one I can tell? I'm your prisoner, remember, who am I going to talk to?" 

"There are no exceptions to the secrecy rules. I'm lucky he didn't punish me for just letting you know we exist in the first place." Kan couldn't admit that the more Matt knew, the harder it would be to persuade Kolivan to let him leave later. 

Matt considered this for a while. Kan didn't dare hope this would bring an end to the questions. Matt was far too curious for that. Sure enough, Matt said, "You weren't doing a very good job of hiding when you found me." 

"We made an exception with that mission because it was urgent," Kan said. And if he'd got caught, he looked sufficiently unlike a Galra that no one would suspect he was linked to a group that had spies inside the Empire. Kan knew that his potential capture and death had been considered as part of the overall plan. 

"Do you make other stuff look like accidents?" Matt asked. "I mean, do you find one of the factories that make those sentry robots and make it look like it had a natural disaster or something?" 

Matt was far too good at this. Even if Kan said nothing, Matt would keep talking, would keep asking questions. If Kan wasn't careful, Matt would ask questions of the wrong people. 

"Fine," Kan said, "if it will stop you asking about it, yes. We destroy Zarkon's stuff. We go in, destroy ships and factories and things like that, and make it look like an accident so no one can trace it back to us. This is what we do. Now stop asking questions before Kolivan decides you're a threat to our organisation's secrecy!" 

"What happens if he decides I am a threat?" Matt asked, because clearly the concept of not asking questions was one he had problems with. 

"You die, OK! If Kolivan decides you're a risk to our secrecy, he'll kill you. So stop asking about these things!" 

There was a moment of quiet, then Matt said quietly, "OK." 

Tension slipped away a little from Kan. Matt finally understood what was at stake.


	9. Chapter 9

"I'm not sure I can eat," Matt said, staring at the wrapped meal pack on the table in front of him. 

"Why not?" Kan asked. "Are you sick?" 

"No. Not really. It's just this... person came in with these puss-filled," Matt made a face. Kan knew exactly who Matt was talking about. There was warrior who usually worked on solo assignments a long distance from anyone else because his hybrid biology left his susceptible to diseases and conditions that no one else in the galaxy seemed to get. He had the DNA of four different species in his genetic makeup which meant he caught illnesses they were all vulnerable to but found his body reacted with alarming new symptoms. He'd returned to make a report to Kolivan and instantly contracted a virus that usually caused nothing more than a mild skin irritation in those who caught it. In him, the result had been pustules that he'd been forced to go to medical to get seen to. 

Kan had a lot of sympathy for what that might have done to Matt's appetite. 

"There's a reason why I stayed with research and theory and never went into real medicine," Matt said. "I mean, I had the required training to serve as the team's medic on the Kerberos mission but no one ever expected me to treat patients with weird diseases." 

"You're not regretting agreeing to work in medical though, are you?" 

"Today, maybe, but not the rest of the time. It's interesting and I'm learning a hell of a lot, plus it's good to have a purpose, you know, and not just waste my time on videos and stuff on your computer." 

Kan nodded. "I understand about having a purpose." 

He'd signed on to stay with the Blade of Marmora because he wanted a purpose. He wanted to help the people who'd saved him and strike a blow against their enemies in the Empire. He didn't have a past, but it felt like he had a future and that was more than enough. 

"You should eat," he said. "The meal packs are tailored to your nutritional needs. If you miss a meal, you might get malnourished again." 

"I work in medical. I think if I got ill, I'd be able to treat myself." 

"Still, no reason to waste food." 

Matt tore open the food pack and took a small bite. There was no enthusiasm to his eating, and no unfavourable comparisons to food he remembered from Earth. If he ever got to Earth, Kan had a very long list of foods he wanted to try eating based on Matt's usual comments at meal times. Today though, he ate as though it was a difficult task. Kan just devoured his own meal without thinking too much about it. 

He was just finishing when a shadow fell across their table. Antok loomed over them, a sight that would put even strong warriors off their food. Matt lowered his half-eaten food block down, shifting in his seat to put a little bit more distance between him and the huge warrior. Kan glared up at Antok, pretending that he was just annoyed at the interruption, but already wondering how quickly he could draw his sword if things went ugly. 

"Kolivan wants to talk to you," Antok said. 

"Right." Kan pushed himself to his feet. "I'll just take Matt back to my quarters and be right there." 

"He wants to talk to both of you." 

Kan went cold. He exchanged a nervous look with Matt, wondering what could have gone wrong. Matt had been following the rules, he'd been doing the work that he'd been assigned and Maises only said positive things about his willingness to learn. As far as Kan was concerned, things had been going well, so why would Kolivan have sent for them? Had he heard the Matt was asking too many questions? Showing too much curiosity about their work? 

"OK," Kan said. When Matt didn't move, he rounded the table and put a hand on Matt's arm, lifting him to his feet. Matt didn't resist him, just moved as though he was in a trance. He looked terrified and Kan didn't have any comforting words to say because he had no idea why this was happening and certainly think of any good reason for it. 

Antok smirked and drew his sword. "Get moving." 

Kan pulled Matt out of the room, aware of other faces turning to watch them. Antok walked behind them, bare blade a constant threat. Kan wanted to ask if Matt had done something wrong, but how could he ask when Antok was right there? Saying anything would be a confession of guilt and Kan didn't want to think about what Antok might do if Matt were found guilty of a crime against the Blade of Marmora. 

They were taken to the control room, the large hall just as imposing now as the first time Kan had seen it. Kolivan waited for them beneath the organisation's symbol, as Antok marched the two humans along the walkway down the middle of the room. Kan fought down his fear as he waited to hear what this was all about. 

"I understand that Kan has been training you to fight," Kolivan said, his tone harsh. 

"He needed exercise," Kan said. "There are no rules against it and it was only a handful of lessons. If you don't want me to, I'll stop." 

Kolivan held up a hand and Kan fell silent. The fear was rapidly turning into panic. He was the one who'd taken Matt to the training room, who'd given him those basic combat lessons. They hadn't even done very much, just gone over the fundamentals of punching and blocks. It wasn't like he was teaching Matt how to break out of here. If Matt was punished for Kan's decision, he'd never forgive himself. 

"You have been training to fight," Kolivan repeated to Matt. It was not a question. 

"A little." 

"I would like to see how much you've learned." 

"I don't understand," Matt said. 

Kolivan gestured and of the Blade's warriors walked out of the shadows holding a dark suit that was almost but not quite the same as the armour that members of the Blade of Marmora wore. This one was a little different, with neural interface links on the neck and the top of the spine to allow the suit to tap into the brain activity of the wearer. Kan had worn a suit like this once and hoped he never had to wear it again. 

Kolivan wanted to test Matt. Kan didn't know whether to be excited or terrified. It was possible Matt would come through this and Kolivan would trust him enough to let him leave. It was also possible that Matt would die. Painfully. 

"Wear the suit," Kolivan said. "You will be given a blade and you will have the opportunity to show your skill against our fighters." 

"But I haven't learned anything about fighting with a blade," Matt said. "We just practiced unarmed combat. If I go up against one of your fighters in a sword fight, I'll die." 

Even if it wasn't death, the fighters didn't hold back in the trials. Kan had barely survived the arena fights that had made up the first part of his test and he was a lot more skilled than Matt was. 

"Let me be his opponent," Kan said. Kolivan shot him a disapproving look. "He's my prisoner, my responsibility. If anyone should test him, it should be me." 

"Antok," Kolivan said, "take Kan to the observation room and ensure he stays there. He is not to interfere with this test." 

Antok's hand clamped down on Kan's shoulder. The brute started moving Kan to the door, his strength unyielding. Kan turned back, seeing Matt alone in front of Kolivan, terror written all over his face. Matt didn't expect to survive this and Kan's reaction had probably only made things worse. 

"It'll be OK, Matt," Kan called. "You'll get through this. You'll be fine." 

Then Antok pushed Kan into the elevator and the door closed, blocking Matt from his sight. 

***

Antok had taken Kan's sword, no doubt not trusting Kan not to try and use it against him. Kan was angry, more because it meant Antok thought he was stupid than for the actual theft of his blade. Kan stood in front of the large screens that would them the trial in its various stages, with Kolivan standing to one side of him and Antok on the other. 

On the screen, Matt stood alone in the large arena, a short knife in one hand while his masked and armoured opponent rose up in front of him, a full sword strapped to his back. 

"He won't be able to activate the knife," Kan pointed out. 

"That's not necessary. This test is about whether or not we should trust his character, not about whether he has Galra blood in him and I don't intend to make him a Blade whatever the outcome." 

"So why are you doing this test now?" Kan asked. 

"Because he has passed the first test. He has helped heal our people in the medical wing without doing anything to harm them. It is time for him to prove his worth." 

On the screen, the Blade warrior drew his sword and Matt took a nervous step back. 

"Surrender the blade," the warrior said. "You cannot win." 

Then Matt did the one thing that had never occurred to Kan to do when he'd been the one on trial. He threw down the blade on the arena floor between himself and his opponent. 

"Sure. Take it. You're right. There's no way in hell I can win this fight, so I surrender. I yield." 

Watching the fight that wasn't a fight, Antok chuckled, "He's a coward." 

Kan didn't think that was the case at all. Matt had been plenty brave enough to stand up to him even when he thought Kan was likely to punish him for speaking up. It was just that Matt was aware of his limits. He knew that physical combat wasn't where his strength lay. 

The warrior returned his sword to its place on his back. Even from the other side of a screen, Kan could see Matt's nervous hope. 

"Is that it?" Matt asked. "Is this farce over?" 

The warrior walked slowly up to Matt and took hold of his arm as Kan so often did, guiding him over to the platforms that served as the warriors' way into the arena. The hatch opened up and the warrior positioned Matt on the platform beneath. 

"What's going on?" Matt asked. "Can someone just explain what's happening to me?" 

The platform lowered and the view on the screen switched. Moments later, Kan got to watch Matt walk out onto a walkway beneath the arena. Matt looked around in curiosity before he wavered, the neurological connections kicking in. Matt collapsed in a boneless heap on the ground. 

The screen flickered away, switching to the mindscape that the suit was generating, letting the watchers see what Matt saw. Kan was surprised to see himself walk up to Matt, offering a hand to help him up. 

"Kan?" Matt asked. "I thought you weren't allowed here." 

"It's OK. I talked to Kolivan about giving you another chance. I pointed out that because you didn't actually start the fight, you couldn't have lost the fight." The illusion Kan held out the short knife to Matt. "You can go back up there." 

"You know there's no point in that," Matt said. "The warrior guy said it, I can't win that fight." 

"You don't have to win. You just have to put on a good show, demonstrate your skill." 

"No! I didn't fight in the gladiator matches and I'm not going to fight now. I'm not going to put on a show for some sick bastard's entertainment!" Kan risked a sideways glance to see how Koilvan was reacting to those words. He seemed mildly amused more than angry. 

"Just go up there and fight." 

"No. I've had it with being ordered around and being forced to do whatever I'm told by some alien captor. I draw the line here. He can kill me if he wants to but I'm not going to do this." 

The illusion Kan turned away, "Then there's no point me trying to protect you anymore." 

"Kan!" 

Matt started forward, obviously wanting to stop Kan leaving, but the mindscape shifted around him. Matt was left standing somewhere completely different, in a room taken up by a large table surrounded by chairs. At one end of the table, a woman stood, and a girl sat smiling at Matt. The girl looked so like Matt that Kan was confused for a moment, but then Matt spoke, his voice full of wonder and joy. 

"Mom? Katie?"


	10. Chapter 10

The test was cruel, Kan had no doubt of that. Those undergoing the trial often got beaten bloody in the arena, but this was the real cruelty, to present people with an image conjured up out of their hopes, only for it to be stripped away. Kan watched Matt in his mindscape, confronted with the image of the family he had been torn away from. 

"Hey, honey," the dream woman said. "Are you hungry? I've made beef stew with dumplings and there's apple pie for desert." 

Matt walked towards the table, his eyes straying from his mom to his sister, and then down onto the table's surface. He frowned. 

"There are only three places set," he said. 

"That's because there's three of us," the mom said. "Now sit. Eat." 

She started serving portions of the food out onto plates, offering one to the girl, who took it calmly. The girl, Katie, looked up at her brother. 

"What are you waiting for?" she asked. 

"Where's Dad?" 

"Oh, let's not talk about upsetting things at the dinner table," the mom said. "Let's just have a nice meal. You're home now. That's what matters." 

"But what about Dad?" 

"Dad can look after himself," said the girl. "He's an adult, a trained mission commander, and a hell of a lot tougher than you are. I'm sure he's fine." 

"No. No, he's not fine!" Matt's voice rose close to a shout. "He's a prisoner of the Galran Empire, a slave. We've got to help him." 

Matt turned away from the table and the nice family meal, heading to the door. 

"What do you think you're going to do about it?" the mom asked. "Do you think you're going to save him? You couldn't even save yourself." 

Matt froze. Kan wished he could reach into the screen, reach into Matt's mind, and offer him some sort of comfort but all he could do was watch as Matt turned back to the illusion of his family. 

"I have to try," he said. "I have to do something. He needs me." 

"What about us?" the mom asked. "What about what we need? We're your family too. Don't you want to be with us? You can be safe. After all you've been through, don't you want to be safe and home and loved?" 

"Of course I want that," Matt said. "I've been dreaming about this for so long, but Dad's still out there somewhere. I can't just leave him a prisoner. Someone has to help him." 

"But why should that be you? Just relax, rest. With what you've been through, no one expects you to have to do anymore than you've already done. Let someone else worry about your dad." 

"I can't. The Galran Empire is evil. Zarkon is evil. I can't just sit around and do nothing while they're still out there hurting people. Even if someone finds Dad, there are millions upon millions of other people hurting just as much. I have to do my part. I have to help somehow." 

"You really think you could fight Zarkon?" Katie asked. She drew a hand up from underneath the table, revealing the knife that Matt had tossed away in the arena fight. She set it on the table, clear and obvious between them, its message as cutting as the blade. 

"I'm not a warrior, but I have other skills. There's got to be a way I can help and I'm going to find it. I'm sorry, Mom, Katie, but I can't stay with you." 

Matt walked from the room again, the mindscape fading around him, leaving just a young man lying unconscious on the walkway. 

"That was fast," Kolivan said, sounding mildly impressed. Then to Kan, "Go to him." 

Kan ran without an instant's hesitation, racing from the room towards the arena and his friend. He reached the place just as Matt was starting to stir, eyes opening as he emerged from the dream. 

"What... happened?" he asked. He brought a hand to his face, rubbing it over his eyes. Kan remembered all too well the disorientation at emerging from the mindscape, the confusion as he'd had to sort out the muddle of what was real and what wasn't. 

"The suit it gets into your head, makes you see stuff." 

"My family. I saw my family." 

"I know. I'm sorry." Kan offered a hand to help Matt up and kept hold of him in case the disorientation overwhelmed him. 

"I still don't understand." 

"The illusion, the stuff you saw, that was the real test, to see how you react to fear and to hope. The mindscape offers you temptation to see if you take it." 

"I should have known it wasn't real. My mom would never have just sat around making stew while my dad was imprisoned. She'd have been the first one storming the gates to get him out, and my little sister would have been fighting twice as hard as the both of us put together." 

"Real or not," Kolivan approached the pair of humans, "It showed us what we needed to see." 

"Yeah?" asked Matt. "And what the hell was that?" 

"That you care about protecting others and that you are serious about the fight against Zarkon." 

"So your sick mind games have told you stuff I'd have happily just told you if you'd bothered asking?" Matt looked like he was wishing he hadn't thrown away his knife. 

"They've told me that you are worthy of trust. You know that we fight against the Galran Empire and you know that secrecy is how we stay in the fight. If the fight matters to you, you will keep our secrets." 

Matt looked towards Kan, who was having a hard time keeping from breaking into a grin because this was exactly what Matt had wanted. The expression was apparently enough to confirm what Matt had suspected. 

"Are you saying I can leave?" Matt asked. 

"Swear that you will not reveal anything about the Blade of Marmora to any outsider, and you may leave. Or stay. The choice is yours." 

"Of course I'm leaving. I've got to find my dad. And Shiro." 

"Then swear on your honour." 

"I swear," Matt said, "I won't reveal your secrets." 

Kolivan nodded. "You have until tomorrow to decide where you wish to start your search. We will give you food for five days and a little currency but do not expect any other assistance from us. Kan, you will take Matt to his chosen destination and then you will return." 

"Yes, sir," Kan said. The happiness that had been rising since Matt had passed the test now began to fade away, vanishing with each moment as he realised this was goodbye. He would take Matt away from here and then they would almost certainly never see each other again. He would never find out if Matt's search was successful, if he saved his dad and made it back home, and Kan found he was invested in that mission. He wanted to see it through, to be there with Matt when he achieved his goals. 

They walked in silence back to Kan's quarters. Matt waited until the door was shut before saying, "You could come with me." 

"This is where I belong." 

"This is the only place you can remember, but it doesn't mean you should stay. Do you really want to stay with people who beat the crap out of you on a daily basis in the name of training?" 

Kan shook his head, "Matt, you know why I have to stay. I saw it in your mindscape. You knew you had to be part of the fight against the Empire and so must I. I can make a difference here. I have to fight Zarkon." 

"But what about finding out more about Earth?" Matt asked. 

"I want to know more about where I come from, but that's a selfish want. It only serves me. Fighting with the Blade of Marmora, doing missions against the Empire, that helps others. I have to stay." 

Matt nodded, all arguments fading. They were very different people who'd got here by very different routes, but in this they were the same. They both understood the importance of this war. 

Matt said quietly, "I just... I'm going to miss you." 

"You too. But let's figure out where you should start." 

"I want to start by finding Voltron," Matt said. "You said they fought against Zarkon too, right? And you think Shiro might have something to do with them?" 

"It's a possibility, but finding them isn't going to be easy. They show up all over the place fighting Zarkon's forces and they never stay anywhere for long. They keep their movements unpredictable to keep Zarkon from destroying them. You could find somewhere Zarkon's attacking and hope they show up, but there are a billion planets in the galaxy that need saving, so your odds of picking the right one are slim." 

"What if, instead of trying to figure out where they're going to be, we go to where they've been." 

"What good would that do?" Kan asked. 

"Think about it, if Zarkon has a reason to attack a planet once and Voltron stops him, he might want to try again. Voltron probably know that. They might leave some way for the people on those planets to call for help if Zarkon comes back." 

"That's actually a really good idea," Kan said. "I just need to look up reports for where Voltron has been active." 

He went to his computer console and logged in, searching the Blade's files for any references to Voltron. It didn't take him long to start finding coordinates of worlds. Voltron weren't exactly hiding their presence from the universe. There were stories of battles from all over the place, from freeing a Balmera mining colony to assisting the evacuation of a disintegrating world called Taujeer. Kan took note of the locations of all of the sites where Voltron had assisted the local population. 

"I know my orders are to take you to your chosen destination and leave you there," Kan said, "but I don't think I'd be stretching the rules too badly if we tried two or three of these." 

"Thanks," Matt said. 

"I think we should start with Arus. It's where the first records of Voltron's re-emergence come from and there was more than one battle there. It seems like they were there longer than they've stayed anywhere else so I think that's our best chance for finding someone who can contact them." 

"OK. I'm not sure what I'll do though if those people don't have a way of contacting Voltron. I doubt Kolivan's going to give me enough money to buy a ship and chase after every report of Voltron I get." 

"I don't know. There are worlds and stations that act as transport hubs. You might try those. A lot of bad guys are looking for Voltron though, so they won't make it easy to be found." 

"It just feels so close," Matt said. "After all this time not knowing what happened to anyone, to know that Shiro might be out there. It feels like I could just reach out and grab him. That probably sounds stupid." 

"No. Not at all." 

Matt looked lost in thought for a minute, but then he looked up at Kan, determination on his face. 

"Well, this could be our last night. Ask your questions. Anything you want to know about Earth." 

And so they talked, with Matt telling stories and answering questions and Kan trying to build up a picture in his mind of this world he couldn't remember. Kan knew they should probably sleep because they might face all sorts of dangers out there, away from the protection of the headquarters, but he didn't want to stop Matt talking. This was a gift, the only thing Matt could give him, and Kan wanted to take it. He knew he might never have another chance to meet one of his own kind and so he wouldn't squander this opportunity. 

The night passed quickly, and soon it was time to go.


	11. Chapter 11

They took one of the small transport ships. It wasn't as fast or agile as the fighter Kan preferred, but it was slightly larger, with space for both him and Matt to sit comfortably in the cockpit. It had been stolen from the Galran Empire as had most of the Blade's ships, which Kan hoped meant they wouldn't be stopped or questioned on their journey so long as they avoided drawing official attention. 

The route Kan had plotted involved traveling in hyperspace which would reduce their chances of getting spotted by any Galra patrols, but Arus was a long way from the Blade's headquarters and this little ship would require dropping back to normal space twice to give the hyperspace booster a chance to recharge. Kan wished they could have taken one of the fighters, especially as he piloted away from the Blade's base, a task that required all his skill. The Blade's headquarters were in a very defensible position in the middle of an unlikely conflux of stellar bodies. The route out involved avoiding getting caught in the gravity of two black holes and a massive star, while also dodging solar activity and chunks of debris that were being pulled into one or other of the black holes. Much as he would have preferred a smaller ship for this stage, they made it out of the gravitational pull intact. When Kan could relax enough to stop focusing all his attention on the controls, he noticed that Matt was gripping the edge of his seat in white-knuckled fear. 

"The worst part's over," Kan said, entering the coordinates for the hyperspace jump. 

"You shouldn't say that," Matt said. 

"Why not?" 

"Murphy's law." 

"What law?" 

Matt explained, "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It's the idea that if you say 'the worst part's over' then instantly something worse happens, or if you say 'at least we haven't seen any Galra ships' then instantly an entire fleet shows up." 

Kan frowned, trying to understand the logic of this. How could simply saying those words change the reality around them. If a Galra fleet were about to arrive, then they would arrive regardless of whether that sentence was spoken. Unless saying those words could somehow alter probability or access parallel worlds in which the fleet was there. Did humans have that ability? 

Kan tried to put his confusion into words to get Matt to explain in more detail, but Matt quickly cut him off. 

"Forget I said anything. It's just silly." 

"But if it's important enough for there to be a named law about it," Kan said, "it must be serious." 

"I'm really regretting saying anything now," Matt said. "It's not a real law, it's just a term people invented to give their annoyance focus when things go wrong. When there are problems, people want something to blame so as a group we invented this concept. It doesn't actually work logically so stop trying." 

Kan was once again left with the impression that his species were very silly creatures. The stories Matt had told about Earth, with all the time spent of frivolous things like proms and computer games and other leisure activities, left Kan wondering how anything ever got done on Earth. If people were blaming random misfortune on some over-arching fate it would stop them looking for the real causes behind the effects that they saw. 

Kan piloted the ship in silence for a bit, while Matt tried to make himself comfortable enough in his chair to sleep, since neither of them had managed much sleep the night before. Kan let him sleep and pushed on through his own tiredness. He put the ship on autopilot for a while, but didn't actually risk closing his eyes himself until Matt woke up and could keep an eye on the controls. 

Once they were both awake again, Matt complained about boredom, wishing he'd brought some of the medical files with him to keep studying. 

"How long is this going to take?" Matt asked. 

Kan checked the distance calculations. "We're most of the way there. Our base was away from most civilised systems as a protective measure which unfortunately means it takes a long time to get anywhere." 

"It didn't take this long when we were escaping from the Galra." 

"That was a lot shorter distance and with a a lot faster ship. Don't worry, we'll be there soon." 

They split a meal pack between them and Matt talked a little about long journeys he'd taken with his family back on Earth, but even Kan was starting to feel the frustration. He wanted to move after all this time sitting in the same place, but there was nowhere to go except to pace three steps each way in the cockpit. At last, he dropped the ship out of hyperspace in orbit of a blue-green world on the edge of Galra space. 

"Is that Arus?" Matt asked. "It's beautiful." 

Kan began the landing procedures, dropping them into the atmosphere at a shallow angle to allow the air resistance to do a lot of the work of deceleration as the planet's gravity drew them in. Matt leaned forward in his seat, peering through the window, a bright smile on his face. 

"It almost looks like Earth," he said. "The land masses are different shapes but colours are almost identical." 

While Matt admired the view, Kan activated the ship's sensors to work out where they should land. This planet was large enough that he could easily end up on a different continent to where they needed to be. His scans picked up remnants of Galran tech, including a crashed spaceship. Nearby, a primitive village was built in a shallow valley. Kan adjusted his trajectory to bring them in to land on the hills above the village. It seemed unlikely that these people would have sufficient technology themselves to contact Voltron, but Matt's theory still allowed for the possibility that Voltron would have left them something. 

Kan landed them on a flat area overlooking the village and ran through the procedures to shut down the ship and reduce the chances of a passing patrol detecting its presence. By the time he was done, there was movement from the village. A crowd had emerged from the houses, many armed with swords, and they were now making their way up the slope towards the ship. Each individual in the crowd was small, most not even reaching Kan's waist, but he wasn't going to underestimate them. There were enough of them that they could pose a threat even without any more sophisticated weapons or armour. Kan activated his mask and drew his sword. 

"Is that necessary?" Matt asked. "We want to get them on our side if we want them to call Voltron." 

"They could be dangerous." 

“They’re tiny.” 

“That doesn’t mean they can’t be a threat.” 

"And if you go out there looking like you want to slaughter them, that's just going to make them more likely to attack. Put the sword away." 

Kan hated that Matt was probably right. They wanted to win these people over, though he wondered if maybe frightening them would get what they wanted too. If these people thought they were under attack they might call on Voltron to protect them, but Kan didn't want the greatest weapon in the galaxy to show up expecting to kill him. He would play it Matt's way for now, but he would be ready to draw his sword in an instant if these creatures proved threatening. 

"Stay beside me," Kan said, but he returned his sword to its place on his back and emerged from the ship with empty hands. 

"Let me do the talking," Matt said. "You still look scary as hell." 

Matt walked slowly towards the approaching group, hands out to show that he held no weapons. Kan stayed beside him, tense and alert, eyeing the bushes and rocks nearby in case they hid other warriors. 

"We don't mean you any harm," Matt said. The warriors stopped their approach and most of them lowered their swords. Kan was astonished how quickly that had worked, but not as astonished as he was by the words one of the creatures said next. 

"You're returned." 

"Returned?" said Matt. He glanced at Kan, who just shrugged. As far as Kan was aware, no one from the Blade of Marmora had ever been here so they couldn't have recognised his armour, but Matt had never been here either. 

One of the warriors moved closer and Kan took a step forward instinctively, moving to a better position from which to shelter Matt. The warrior stopped short, but it didn't appear to be because of Kan's intimidation. He looked at Matt with a puzzled expression on his face. 

"Wait. You're not Pidge." 

"I don't know who Pidge is," Matt said. 

"You look like Pidge. Just taller. Are you sure you're not Pidge?" 

"My name's Matt." 

There was a disappointed murmuring that flowed through the group and a few of the warriors raised their weapons again. One of the group, slightly larger than the others and in some kind of robes that Kan guessed must be a mark of status, walked out of the group and came to stand between them. 

"Are you here on behalf of the lion goddess?" the alien asked. 

Matt stepped around Kan, much to Kan's annoyance, and stood before this lead alien. "Actually, we were here looking for Voltron. We were hoping you might have a way to contact them. We think one of my friends might be with them. His name's Shiro." 

There was definitely recognition at that name. Several of the warriors nodded in excitement. 

"Shiro. Mighty warrior. Very tall. Friend of the lion goddess." 

"OK," said Matt. "Would you be able to contact him and tell him that Matt's here?" 

"Of course," said the alien leader. "Come to our village." 

Matt started walking and so of course Kan had to go too. It was clear that Matt's easy welcome was not extended so easily to Kan. Several of the warriors still looked at him suspiciously and kept their weapons ready. It was almost reassuring. If they'd been so quick to accept them, he might have suspected a trap, but they'd known Shiro's name. The fact that they thought Matt looked like someone they'd met was also a good sign, as it meant that whoever else had been here with Shiro was probably also human. 

Matt and Kan were left in the centre of the village while the alien chief disappeared into one of the huts. Kan studied their surroundings, not liking the fact that there were now aliens on all sides and no clear escape route back to the ship. He wondered if the aliens had brought them here so that they would be surrounded if the message from Voltron came back unfavourably. 

He needn't have worried about that as it turned out. After a few minutes, the chief emerged from the hut, a broad smile on his face. 

"The lion goddess is returning!" he cleared, to wild cheers from the villagers. "We are to welcome this one as friend and brother of the great warriors." There were more cheers. "Come! Let us feast together!" That got even more and far louder cheers. 

The villagers moved quickly, abandoning whatever activities might make up their daily lives to emerge with food and instruments. Some lit fires in the village square to prepare more meals while others carried out furniture from the nearby huts. The chairs the locals used would be ridiculously small for Kan and Matt, but a little group carried out a table that worked acceptably as a low bench. Matt sat down and Kan squeezed in beside him, pressed up against him due to the lack of room. 

Kan was starting to feel nervous about how smoothly everything had gone. He knew he should be glad that these people were welcoming and had agreed to do what they asked, but he couldn't help worry that they might be luring them into a false sense of security. This whole celebration routine could be designed to distract them while enemies closed in. Perhaps Kan was falling victim to that superstitious nonsense of the Murphy Law, because the fact that things were going well just made him more convinced that something was certain to go wrong. 

He watched their surroundings suspiciously, but all the weapons had vanished now and the locals were clearly more concerned with preparing for a party. One of the villagers handed them a plate of fruit, all brilliant colours. Matt lifted one up and sniffed it cautiously. 

"I suppose this isn't toxic to humans," he said. "I wish I brought one of the machines from the medical wing to analyse its content." Matt turned to the nearest of the villagers, "Excuse me, when Shiro and this Pidge person were here, do you know if they were able to eat this food without getting sick?" 

"Of course," said the villager. "All the lion warriors feasted with us after they defeated the monster that fell from the skies. Especially Hunk. Hunk feasted a lot." 

"OK. Thanks." 

Matt stared at the fruit some more while the villager carried on with what it was doing, which appeared to be hanging woven clothes as decorative banners. 

"It's not worth the risk," Kan said. "We still have meal packs which you know are tailored specifically to your nutritional requirements." 

"They also taste like cardboard. My dad always said that if you're too worried about what might go wrong, you could miss the chance to do something great." 

"Eating fruit counts as something great?" 

"After all those meal packs, it does. Screw it, I'm taking the chance." 

Matt bit into the piece of fruit. He closed his eyes and froze, leaving Kan to wonder for a second if Matt was having some sort of fit in reaction to the food, but then Matt's face changed into an expression of ecstasy as he chewed. He swallowed down the bite he'd taken and licked the juice that had escaped down his lips. He turned to Kan with a huge grin. 

"This is what I've been dreaming of since the day I was captured. Turn off that ridiculous mask and try some." 

"I don't want to risk it," Kan said, but his resolve weakened as Matt ate the rest of the fruit and then licked every drop of juice off his fingers as though he couldn't bear the thought of losing a single trace. His expression was one of pure delight. Kan remembered their conversations about the meal packs and Matt's complaints of blandness. He thought of all the foods Matt had talked about missing. Kan had eaten the meal packs for as long as he could remember and never had a problem with them, but was that only because he didn't know anything different? 

As Matt devoured another piece of fruit with a blissful expression on his face, Kan decided it was time he saw what he'd been missing out on. He would be sensible though. He would take a single small bite and then wait to see if there were any adverse effects, rather than devouring whole fruits the way Matt was doing. 

Kan deactivated his mask, noting how the villagers watched him, many of them peering at his face and muttering quietly to themselves as he did so. None of them came up to him though which he was glad about, so Kan picked up a small, red fruit and took a cautious bite. Nothing in his remembered experience had prepared him for the burst of sweetness in his mouth. The crisp outer edge of the fruit gave way to soft flesh that was so full of juice it washed over his tongue with a flavour he would never have dreamed existed. 

He had never imagined that food could be like this. All this time, he had accepted the meal packs and never known that tastes like this were possible. 

"Try this one," Matt offered him another fruit that he'd been eating. Kan took it and bit from the untouched side. The flavour was sharper than the first, with a note of sourness that gave an edge to the taste without undermining the overall sweetness. Kan could barely comprehend the way his mouth was reacting. Everything in him just wanted to grab more of the fruit and devour it as fast as he was able. He wanted to try everything, to see the differences between the flavours, to test them all. All thought of caution was gone in a heartbeat and he swallowed the fruit he held in a few large bites before descending on the plate again to claim one of the others and see how this compared. 

"I don't know which of us had it worse," Matt said, between bites. "You've never had a good meal that you can remember, but I knew what I was missing while I was eating Galra slave rations and those horrible meal packs you provided. I've spent the last god knows how long missing this." 

Kan didn't know the answer to Matt's question but he knew he couldn't go back to eating meal packs every day now that he knew this was a possibility. He would have to talk to someone about the flavours of those things. In the end, flavour was just about chemical formulae. Surely it would be possible to add some taste to the meal packs. It had better be possible because he wasn't going to accept no for an answer. 

They finished the plate of fruit far too fast but then one of the villagers was there to take the empty plate away and give them parcels of something hot wrapped in leaves. Kan turned his over in his hands, wondering if he was meant to unwrap it and only eat the contents, but Matt just bit right in, teeth tearing through the leaves and sinking into the contents. Kan followed suit, finding a flavour far removed from the fruit they'd just eaten, but delicious and tender. And so the feast went on. Kan had never eaten so much in all his memory, he'd never wanted to eat so much, but now he had to try everything the villagers brought to them. Everything was new and different and wonderful in its own unique way. He didn't have any idea what he was eating most of the time, but he'd abandoned caution and almost didn't care if this stuff ended up poisoning him. 

He was just reaching the point where he thought he might explode if he ate any more, when a roaring noise made him look up. A bright streak blazed through the atmosphere as something came down towards the planet's surface, other streaks not far behind. 

Kan stood and watched as the first craft rushed down towards them, engines blasting to contract the descent. It was nothing like any ship he'd ever seen before. It didn't seem possible that something like this should fly, and its shape was utterly ludicrous from flight in an atmosphere. It looked more like an animal than a functional spacecraft. He'd heard all the stories of Voltron, but that hadn't prepared him for actually seeing one of the craft. It seemed Matt was no less taken aback. 

"Holy crap!" Matt said. "That's a giant green lion."


	12. Chapter 12

The green lion landed a short distance from the village, whoever was piloting it able to get it in close without risking damage to the buildings. The four legs of the beast let it land on a surface less even than the one Kan had chosen for his own landing, so he supposed there were some advantages of the improbably shape. The villagers cheered in greeting and crowded around. Matt and Kan extracted themselves from the mass of small aliens, and walked to the edge of the village, while the metal beast lowered its head close to the ground and opened its mouth, a ramp unfolding like a tongue to allow access to the inside. 

A figure barrelled down the ramp and Kan reached instinctively for the hilt of his sword as the lion's pilot charged towards Matt. But Kan hesitated, seeing the unruly mass of hair and the collection of facial features that was not just human but almost identical to Matt's. It was the girl he'd seen in Matt's mindscape, his sister. Her hair was shorter now, which made the resemblance to Matt all the more striking, but there could be no doubt who she was, especially when she flung her arms around Matt and he grabbed her back in a tight embrace. 

"Matt!" 

"Katie, what the hell? How are you here?" 

"I can't believe you're really here." 

"You can't believe it? What about you? What the hell are you doing piloting a giant lion?" 

They never let go of each other, clinging tightly and talked rapidly, their words overlapping in their excitement to greet each other. Kan could only watch along with the locals. The other lions had landed now, their pilots climbing out as Katie had. The villagers crowded round them to greet them with hugs and cheers, and Kan turned to to movement, getting his first real look at them. He saw the tall figure of Shiro that he recognised from the gladiator videos accepting hugs from the little creatures with an expression of mild amusement on his face. Kan wondered what he ought to say, or if he ought to say nothing at all. Perhaps it would be better to just leave Matt to this and get back on his ship before he faced questions he couldn't answer about who he was and where he came from. 

But he didn't want to leave Matt without saying goodbye. Besides, these pilots were all human. Did Kan really want to leave without at least talking to these others of his own kind? He looked round and saw them looking back at him with astonishment on their faces. 

"Keith?" the pilot in blue said. 

"Keith!" The pilot in yellow nearly shouted the word and charged at Kan, arms out. Kan just reacted, all his sparring practice kicking in at once as this large, armoured figure rush at him. Kan dodged and lowered his body weight, catching the other man and using his momentum to pivot him over Kan's hip. The large human landed heavily on his back and Kan quickly had his sword out, the tip pointed at the gap the helmet left at the bottom of the man's face. 

"Hey!" Yellow protested, while around him the celebrating aliens turned rapidly hostile. Kan thought he was about to get swarmed by the tiny creatures. 

"Keith, what are you doing?" asked Shiro, taking a step forward, arms outstretched in a placating gesture. It took Kan a moment to work out that they were addressing him, that 'Keith' wasn't just a strange noise or some unknown word that they were all saying. It seemed like a name. A name they were using to address him. 

"Do you... know me?" Kan asked. He stared at Shiro, the only one of these men who was familiar. 

"Of course we know you, Keith," Shiro said. "You don't know us?" 

He'd wondered what it would be like to meet people who'd known him from before his memory loss, but it was hard to believe it was really happening. There had been a part of him that had just assumed that if he ever met someone he was supposed to know, there would be some sense of familiarity, but there was just emptiness. Blankness. 

A hand touched Kan's arm. Matt had left his sister and was now at his side, a calming presence. 

"Let's put the sword away," Matt said in a gentle tone. "Sticking swords in people's faces is not an acceptable form of greeting." There was a nervous smile on his face, showing he was trying to make a joke, trying to ease the awkwardness of this moment. Kan moved the sword away from the yellow pilot's face and returned it to the sheath on his back. Shiro turned to the hoard of villagers who were still looking at Kan in a confused and vaguely threatening way. Shiro asked them to give some privacy and the aliens reluctantly headed back to the village, though some of them lurked nearby to watch from a not-at-all discrete distance. 

Kan faced the gathered pilots and tried to look appropriately apologetic. 

"Sorry," Kan said. "When you rushed at me like that, I just reacted on instinct." 

"Hey, it's no big deal," the yellow warrior said, picking himself off the ground. "I'm just glad you're not dead." 

Shiro walked a few steps closer, a cautious eye on the sword. "You really don't know us?" 

"I know who you are," Kan said, "because I saw some recordings of your gladiator fights and Matt told me about you." He turned to the girl, Katie. "He talked about you too. I don't know the rest of you." 

"After everything we've been through?" asked the blue guy. "How could you not remember us? What about rescuing Shiro from the crash? Finding Blue? Battling Sendak? That time you saved me from getting blasted out of an airlock by a haunted ship? You don't remember any of that?" 

He looked like he might start crying but Kan could only shake his head. He didn't like talking about what had happened to him but if these people really did know him, it seemed he had to. 

"I was injured," he said. "I was adrift in space and my brain was starved of oxygen. It left me brain damaged." 

"Well, we always knew you were brain damaged," the blue guy said. 

"Lance!" cut in Shiro. At least now Kan had a name for another one of them. 

"The people who found me were able to restore my normal brain functions but I lost all my memories of everything that had happened before that." 

"Everything?" asked Shiro. 

"I still had language skills and abilities like fighting and piloting, but no memory of how I learned those things. I have some patches of knowledge that I don't remember learning but other things are complete blanks." 

"We thought you were dead," said the blue guy, Lance. "We had a memorial service for you and everything." 

Kan wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that. Should he apologise? He didn't want to since he didn't know if he'd done anything wrong to lead them to believe he was dead, and it seemed weird to apologise for showing up alive. He settled for quietly freaking out about the fact that he was surrounded by people who knew more about him than he did, who knew where he came from and who he was, who were looking at him now with wonder for just existing. What was he supposed to do now? 

What if they didn't like the person he was now? What if he didn't like the person he had been? 

He was terrified, but at the same time he had so many questions he couldn't figure out which ones to ask. 

"Let's go back up to the castle," Shiro said. "We should talk to Allura about this. Maybe the healing pods will be able to help." 

The castle, the huge ship that carried the lions of Voltron from battle to battle. Kan had heard the stories but never imagined he would see it. He shouldn't be seeing it now. His mission was to take Matt to his destination and then return. Kolivan expected him to go back to the Blade of Marmora immediately, but neither of them had expected this to happen. Kan had known he might meet another one of his kind, but he hadn't imagined he might meet people who knew him and who might answer all his questions about his past. How could he go back to Kolivan without knowing more? 

But he would have to go back to Kolivan eventually, wouldn't he? He was still a member of the Blade of Marmora. He still had a purpose with them, a role to play in this war. He couldn't abandon that just because people knew his name. His place was with the Blade, but he felt like if he went with them now, he was committing to another path, one which meant turning his back on his sworn duty. 

"Come on," Matt said, his hand on Kan's arm, urging him forward. Kan remembered how it had been in the early days with Matt at the headquarters and how he'd guided Matt around in exactly this manner. There was a strange symmetry to it. 

Still, Kan shook off the hand as Matt tried to lead him to the green lion. 

"I'll take my own ship," Kan said. He needed to be able to leave if necessary. He didn't want to be trapped on someone else's ship with no way off. Shiro looked beyond the lions to the Galra craft on the hilltop above the village. 

"I'll show you the pod bay," Shiro said. "Follow the black lion and I'll show you the way for you to go in before I dock myself." 

He didn't seem to mind that Kan would have his own ship. So it was agreed and Kan returned to his ship and powered everything up again. Sealed inside the cockpit, he took a moment to gather himself and found his hands starting to shake. His body trembled with emotion as he tried and failed to process everything that was happening right now. He'd found his people, people who had mourned for him when they thought he was gone. All the questions he had, they would be able to answer. Everything he'd wondered about himself, they would know. He ought to be thrilled, but he was terrified, more scared than he'd ever been before a mission or when facing down enemy fighters. 

He didn't have a plan for this. He didn't have a framework for how to deal with it. A part of him wanted to just throw the ship into hyperspeed and flee because at least with the Blade he knew how things worked. Here he was already messing up. He'd threatened someone who'd been coming to greet him. What else might he do wrong? 

What if these people rejected him? 

Worse, what if they accepted him and wanted him to stay? How would he deal with that when he knew he was expected home? 

He forced his hands to the controls and fired up the engines, lifting the ship away from the planet's gravity. It was easy to detect the castle in orbit and steer his little ship towards it, and then he could see the black lion in front of him on the view screen, waiting. Kan followed the lion around the castle ship until he saw the opening into a docking bay. The docking spaces he found within were clearly built for a different shape of ship, and most of them were occupied, but there was space enough in the middle of it all for him to land his transport ship. He switched off engines again and tried to force his tangled emotions under control. 

As he walked towards the doorway out of the docking bay, a figure stepped into view. This one looked similar to humans but not quite the same, with different shaped ears and some markings on his face. Still, he greeted Kan with a smile. 

"Welcome back," he said. He looked hopeful, like he expected Kan to have a sudden burst of memory at the mere sight of him. That didn't happen. 

"What's your name?" Kan asked. The man looked disappointed. 

"I'm Coran. We were friends, before you died. I'm sure we'll be friends again in no time." 

"Right. Where are the others?" 

"Of course. Come this way." 

Coran didn't try to grab hold of him, for which Kan was grateful. He was even more grateful that no one had suggested he part with his sword. It's weight was a comforting presence on his back as he walked into this new territory. The interior of the ship was huge and gleaming, with white corridors and shining lights. It was so different from the familiar greys and purples of the Blade's headquarters, and none of it sparked any form of memory inside him. Kan kept his eyes roving around him, alert for threats even though he knew this was probably the safest place in the universe for him. Not only were these people claiming to know him, to be friends with him, but they were _Voltron_ , the protectors of life. He ought to be able to trust them not to hurt him, but he still couldn't stop the anxiety coursing through him. 

They reached a bridge that shone in white and blue, with a woman waiting for them. Kan guessed she was the same species as Coran, and she greeted him with a wide smile. 

"Welcome back, Keith. I am Allura, princess of Altea." 

"Hi," Kan managed in response. He still wasn't sure about being called by his forgotten name. He didn't feel like he was that person, didn't feel like the person they all expected him to be. 

They were quickly joined by the Paladins, Matt standing close by his sister's side. Katie smiled up at Kan as she entered, saying, "Matt said you rescued him from the Galra." 

Kan shrugged, "I wanted to know more about my species. I wasn't doing it to save him. Not really." 

"But you did save me, and you protected me from Antok." 

Kan shot Matt a glare. He wasn't supposed to talk about Antok or any of the members of the Blade of Marmora. Matt seemed to understand the message Kan was silently telling him, because he looked remorseful, but the damage was done. 

"Who's Antok?" Lance asked. 

"Big guy who didn't like me for some reason," Matt said, waving a hand to dismiss the thought. "It's not important. What matters is that Kan, Keith I guess, got me out of slavery. He's the one who told me the rumours that the escaped gladiator champion," Matt gestured to Shiro, "was involved with Voltron, and he was able to find out what planets Voltron had been on so we could track you down. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for him." 

Kan felt uncomfortable in the face of this praise because he knew that most of his actions had been selfish. Even the kindness he'd shown to Matt had been to avoid his own guilt for imprisoning him yet again. It wasn't right for Matt to make him look like some kind of hero. 

"Thank you, Keith," Katie said. She approached Kan more slowly than her friend had down on the planet, but Kan was no more comfortable about it when she put her arms around him in a hug. He wanted to shove her away. 

"What were you doing on a Galra ship to notice Matt anyway?" Lance asked. Kan hesitated. He couldn't admit his mission. 

"Trying not to get killed," he said. 

"He is amazing with that sword," Matt said. "There was this whole group of sentry robots and I was sure we were about to get shot, but he just whips out the sword and slash, slash, slash, and the sentries were all dead in two seconds flat." 

"You were always good with a sword," Shiro said to Kan. That didn't surprise him. When he'd woken up at the Blade headquarters, he knew nothing about his past but the first time he'd picked up a weapon in training, he had held it correctly without thinking. He reacted to attacks without having to consider them. According to Maises, that was because different types of memory were stored in different parts of the brain and clearly those parts that remembered how to fight had been less damaged than the parts which stored his episodic memory. 

"What I'd like to know," Kan said, "is how I got injured in the first place. I was found adrift with no trace of a ship or wreckage or anything like that anywhere near me." 

"You went to retrieve some items we needed," Shiro said, "and you took a pod because the lion would have drawn too much attention. We don't know what happened but your lion suddenly launched on its own. We theorised that it had detected that you were in danger. When we followed it, we found debris from the pod in an unstable gas cloud and your lion was just..." 

"Sulking," suggested Lance. 

"... dormant," Shiro continued. "Your lion had shut down completely. We tried searching the gas cloud, for you or your body, but there were pockets of unstable elements that were liable to combust with any interference. We couldn't find any trace of you and given the pod's destruction, the nature of the local area, and the reaction of your lion, we were forced to accept that you were probably dead." 

So no one really knew what had caused him to be adrift. Perhaps his pod had run afoul of one of those gas pockets. Perhaps he'd been attacked. Perhaps there'd been a mechanical error. He'd been the only witness and he had no memories of the event. He would probably never find out the truth. 

"I'm confused about these lions," Matt said. "You're talking about them like they're alive." 

"They are," said Lance. 

"Sort of," put in the guy in yellow. Kan really needed to learn his name. 

"The lions are conscious," Allura said. "They are aware of the universe around them and they form a strong bond with their pilots. The red lion was called to you, Keith, when it sensed you were in danger, and the way it shut down afterwards was what convinced us that you were dead, because the lion was acting as though it no longer had a pilot." 

Kan wondered if his condition was because the lion had chosen to abandon him, or if the lion had chosen to abandon him because of his condition. Perhaps the damage to his brain had been severe enough that the lion had decided he wasn't worthy anymore. Either way, if the lion had abandoned him then it would solve his dilemma. He would be able to go back to Kolivan without guilt about leaving others who needed him. He wanted this choice to be made for him. 

"Could I see the lion?" Kan asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My second favourite moment in this whole fic is Hunk trying to hug Kan/Keith and ending up dumped on the ground with a sword at his throat - along with Matt's lesson on human greetings. 
> 
> For my favourite moment, you'll have to wait for the next chapter. :)


	13. Chapter 13

The red lion was as large as the green had been, sitting motionless in its hanger. If he hadn't seen the others and heard the way the Paladins talked about these lions, he would have thought this just a mechanical creation or perhaps a sculpture by someone with too large a supply of metal. The lion didn't react to him as he approached it. Its eyes were dark and empty, instead of the yellow gleam he'd seen on the other lions. 

Behind Kan, the other Paladins and Matt waited anxiously at a short distance, watching to see what would happen. Kan suspected they were as nervous as he was. What did they all expect to happen? Did they think Kan would talk to the lion and magically be transformed into the person they had known? He wasn't even sure if he wanted that. What would that do to the person he was now? 

Kan stopped right in front of the huge beast and it still didn't react. Was it dead? Was it ignoring him? How was he supposed to make it wake up? 

"Hi," Kan said. "Apparently I'm your pilot, your Paladin." 

It seemed that didn't impress the lump of metal. Allura had talked about a bond between pilots and lions but she hadn't given anything that even resembled instructions. How was he supposed to bond with this thing? 

He reached out and lay a hand on the metal of the leg and instantly his mind was awash with images and sensations. He saw himself from the outside, clinging desperately to a control console to avoid being pulled out of an airlock. He saw himself in red and white armour with a sword in hand, fighting Galra sentry robots. He saw himself sitting in the pilot's chair of a cockpit he knew he recognised. He dreamt about that cockpit. He'd dreamt that he was flying the lion, more than once, he just hadn't realised what the dreams were until this moment. 

Along with the images came feelings, traces of emotion without any words or thoughts that could be identified, just sensations that flowed into him. They were almost overwhelming, washing through his mind in a stream that jumbled everything together. There was grief, and hurt, and anger, all mingled together into a sense of abandonment. The lion hadn't said anything but still Kan understood. The anger that filled him in response wasn't coming from the lion. 

Kan let his hand drop away and backed up a few steps so he could glare up at the lion's face. 

"Are you angry with _me_?" he demanded. "I nearly died. You don't get to sulk about me abandoning you because I didn't know what I'd left behind. If anyone should be angry, it's me because you left me floating in space until my oxygen ran out and destroyed everything I know about myself. I didn't abandon you. You abandoned me!" 

"Are you sure it's a good idea to yell at the giant robot weapon?" Matt asked. 

"I don't care," snapped Kan. "If this thing was really connected to me it could have tried harder to find me when I needed help. I was _alone_ and it was here sulking about me leaving when it's not like I knew there was anything to leave. It should have come after me. Even if it couldn't find me for whatever reason, it could have kept on fighting and doing something useful against the Galran Empire." Kan had dedicated his life to the fight even without knowing what he'd been fighting for but the lion, despite its memories and strength, hadn't done the same. "If it's intelligent enough to fly off on its own without a pilot then it should be intelligent enough to do something, to fight, instead of sitting around like a pouting toddler because things didn't go its way. There's still a war going on and this thing has been doing absolutely nothing to help." 

The lion finally moved, its eyes blazing into yellow fire. It lowered its head at Kan and he took a step back, already reaching for his sword, in case this thing wanted to eat him. Behind him, Matt gave a yelp of fear. But the lion's head stopped right in front of him, those yellow eyes staring at him. Kan didn't know how he knew it was staring since the eyes didn't have pupils, but he was absolutely convinced the thing was looking straight at him. It moved its head gently forward until its nose tapped gently against Kan's chest. The head was giant in comparison to Kan's size, the strength inside that metal body was phenominal, but the touch was soft and full of feeling. Kan felt a wave of sorrow coming from the beast. The feeling was so strong it was nearly overwhelming, pain and grief and shame for leaving its pilot, for not understanding. Guilt and sadness. Sorrow. 

"It's no good apologising," Kan said. "I'm still mad at you." 

He glared a minute more, but it was hard to stay angry when he could feel how _sorry_ the lion was. The lion had thought Keith had chosen to leave, that he'd broken the bond deliberately. Red had been hurt and angry at the severing of the bond, and hadn't been able to feel the danger Keith was in. Red hadn't known to look anymore than Kan had, and now the lion felt grief because it should have known better. She should have known her pilot wouldn't leave by choice. Without words, the understanding flowed between them and Kan felt sorry too, sorry that he hadn't realised what his dreams were trying to tell him, that he hadn't known he was missing this part of himself. 

The lion returned to her original posture but the lights remained on this time, eyes still on Kan, almost challenging. She understood what was happening inside Kan's head, the decision that had to be made. Still there were no thoughts that could be considered words, but Kan knew it was asking what he planned to do next. 

Kan hadn't the faintest idea. Meeting the lion hadn't made anything easier. He still didn't know his past, he still didn't know who he was, but he knew with absolute certainty that the lion was _his_ just as he belonged to the lion. He couldn't walk away from this, from her. Leaving the lion would be like ripping out a part of himself and he had so little of himself left. He couldn't go back to Kolivan and leave the lion here but he couldn't take the lion from Voltron when it was needed to be part of the whole. On the other hand, he couldn't just leave the Blade, not with the oaths he'd taken and the knowledge he possessed. The Blade of Marmora wouldn't allow a former member to just walk away with all of their secrets. He was trapped between the two sides. 

Right now, it felt like his mind only contained the wrong information. If he could just forget about his time with the Blade, everything would be alright, even Antok wouldn't object to him leaving then. He could stay here and pilot Red and be among his own kind. But if he could just choose what he remembered or forgot, he wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. 

"Kan?" Matt asked, returning to his side. 

Kan almost wished he'd never met Matt. Before him, he'd known what he needed to do. He'd followed orders and completed missions and been confident that he was doing his part to make the galaxy safer. Nothing was simple anymore. 

Kan looked past Matt towards the others, standing in their awkward group, all watching to see what he would do. This was something they expected him to decide, and they clearly expected him to decide to stay. They thought he was one of them, just like Red did, and they understood the bond between Paladin and lion that was calling him to remain. They had welcomed him back, and now looked at him with hope-filled eyes to see how he was reacting to the lion. Every single one of them thought he belonged here, but Kan still felt like a stranger in their midst. He was caught between two lives and how could he choose which one when the Blade was the only life he'd known? 

He needed to know what he'd be giving up if he left. 

"Please," Kan said, "tell me about myself. Tell me about about the things we did together." 

They went to a lounge area and talked for a long time. Lance talked about their pilot training and how they'd been rivals, with Hunk interrupting to say, "Actually, Lance wanted to be your rival because he thought you were awesome, but you barely knew who he was." 

"What are you talking about?" Lance said. "We were totally rivals. He just pretended not to know me to insult me because he felt threatened." 

Shiro talked about their friendship and how he had been assigned to mentor Keith through some difficult personal times. 

"The teachers thought you had a lot of talent but that you were disruptive and liable to get in trouble. They thought having someone older act as a mentor would calm you down, make you focus more on your studies so you could achieve your potential." 

"Of course," said Lance, "that backfired when Shiro disappeared. When the Kerberos mission vanished it was blamed on pilot error and one of the instructors was going on about how even qualified pilots could make mistakes that could cost their crew their lives, and you just lost it. You threw a desk at the teacher." 

"I wish I'd seen that," said Katie. 

"It was actually kind of awesome in a terrifying way," Hunk said. 

Lance explained the Keith had been kicked out of the school and then Katie picked up the story with how she'd been hunting for her missing family. She explained about her discoveries and taking a false name to continue her search, which explained why the others all called her Pidge. She told them how she'd detected alien signals and how it had led them to Shiro's crash in the desert. The others picked up the story at that point. They spoke together, frequently interrupting or contradicting each other, as they explained about rescuing Shiro, finding the blue lion, and coming to the castle. And so the story continued, with tales of adventures and battles. Katie talked about her efforts to track down her brother and father, at which point Matt pulled her into another hug. The two of them were constantly hugging each other, as though afraid someone would snatch the other one away if they let go for more than a few seconds. 

Kan listened to the stories and tried to fit them into his view of himself. He could see pieces of himself in Keith, especially in the way he would leap into a fight without always thinking things through, but he was still struggling to see himself as Keith. He felt like he was learning about another person. A stranger. 

Nothing any of them said felt familiar. Nothing stirred up memories. All this time, all these amazing things that had happened, felt like nothing more than stories. The more he heard, the more Kan became convinced that he wasn't going to remember. His past felt as far away as ever. 

When the Paladins had finished, Matt told his story, from the first capture up until the point where Kan had rescued him. He explained with gratitude in his voice about how Shiro had saved him from the gladiator arena, nearly crying as he said how sure he'd been that Shiro had died for that, for him. He skimmed over large chunks of his time as a slave, presumably not wanting to dwell on the pain he'd suffered. He also skimmed over almost everything that had happened after his rescue, avoiding all mention of the Blade of Marmora. The way he told it, he made it sound like he and Kan had been on their own since leaving the Galran ship. Those listening probably thought the rescue had happened a handful of days ago at most, and Kan was happy to let them believe that. 

When they had all run out of words for the time being, the Paladins took Kan and Matt to the living quarters. Shiro showed Kan a room that had apparently once been his, while Katie took Matt to an identical room a few doors down. Kan shut himself in his room and looked around at it, seeing a living space as empty as the one he'd had with the Blade. It seemed he'd never been one to accumulate belongings. That was comforting in its familiarity at least. He lay down on the bunk and thought about what he should do now. 

He could just stay here and pretend that the Blade didn't exist. He could make this his life, piloting the red lion and fighting as part of Voltron. But then the Blade of Marmora would consider him a traitor. Kolivan might be willing to ignore it, but Antok would want Kan's blood for the betrayal and all of them would be concerned about having him out there knowing everything he knew about the Blade and their operations. Especially if he left without a word after being ordered to return. 

But he couldn't go back. He'd been prepared to say goodbye to Matt forever. He was even willing to do that with the rest of these people, but he couldn't leave Red. He'd felt the connection, felt the link between the two of them, and he knew that no power in the universe would make him abandon his lion willingly. 

He had to try and make Kolivan understand that. He had to make Kolivan understand that by fighting with Voltron he wasn't turning his back on the Blade. Maybe they could even be allies, with the Blade's espionage providing intelligence to Voltron about where to target their attacks. 

Kan sat up on the bed. He wasn't the first person to want an alliance between Voltron and the Blade of Marmora. Shiro might not realise it, but he was alive today because one of the Blade believed in protecting Voltron. Ulaz had saved Shiro to save the blue lion and he'd argued with Kolivan in favour of approaching Voltron to form an alliance. If Kan could talk to Ulaz, could explain his current situation, the perhaps Ulaz could help him come up with a plan that would allow him to be part of both groups. With his help, maybe Kan wouldn't have to choose. But he couldn't just lead Voltron to Ulaz without breaking his oath of secrecy. Revealing the Blade's secrets was a crime so much worse than just leaving. 

If he wanted to talk to Ulaz, he had to go alone. 

Kan slipped out of his room and along the hallway. He looked at the identical doors for some time, trying to remember clearly which one Matt was behind, not wanting to risk waking one of the others. The longer he spent thinking about it, the less certain he became, so he decided to just go ahead and open the door. He crept into the dark room as the door closed behind him. Despite teh darkness in the room, he was sure it was Matt curled up under the blanket and not his sister because Matt had pulled the bedclothes from the bunk and made himself a nest on the floor, sleeping as he had back in Kan's quarters at the Blade headquarters. Kan crouched beside him and pressed his hand against Matt's mouth, waking him and silencing him in the same gesture. 

Matt flailed awake, kicking out and grabbing at Kan's wrist with one hand and sending a fist towards Kan's face with the other. 

"It's me," Kan hissed. Matt went still, so Kan moved his hand away. Matt frowned up at him. 

"What's going on?" Matt asked, voice as quiet as Kan's had been. 

"I'm leaving this ship." 

"What?" Matt sat up, staring at Kan in confusion and concern. 

"The Blade of Marmora don't take kindly to desertion. If I just leave them without a word... it won't go well." 

"So you're just going back to them? What about your friends? What about the red lion and Voltron? From what Katie and Shiro were saying, they can't form the superweapon without you." 

"I have to explain things to Kolivan. I have to make him understand why I'm leaving." 

"What if they don't let you leave?" 

Matt's concern was valid. Kolivan hadn't wanted Matt to leave when he knew next to nothing about the Blade. Kan had in-depth knowledge of their bases, their security codes, their identities, and a whole lot more that would be disastrous if it got into the wrong hands. It was entirely possible that the likes of Antok would prefer to see Kan dead than deserted, even if he were leaving the Blade to continue the fight with another group. Anxiety sat in the pit of Kan's stomach when he thought about what might happen. He couldn't be certain he was coming back. 

"That's why I need you," Kan said. "I will do everything in my power to come back here, but if I don't, if they don't let me, then someone needs to pilot the red lion." 

"You're not serious." 

"I want you to take my place with Voltron until I can come back." 

"But what if the red lion doesn't accept me?" Matt asked. 

"Let's go find out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case anyone was wondering, my favourite moment in this fic (so far) is Kan yelling at Red.


	14. Chapter 14

Kan and Matt walked together down to the red lion's hanger. Matt still seemed reluctant about this whole idea and Kan wasn't exactly eager about it either. He didn't want to leave Red, but he knew this was his only option unless he wanted Blade assassins to be tracking him down. They couldn't afford a war between the Blade of Marmora and Voltron. He told himself that this was only temporary, but he knew that might not be the case, and he guessed that Matt at least suspected. 

Kan couldn't tell him about Ulaz though. He was breaking enough rules right now that he couldn't break another one by revealing information about a Blade member that Matt had never met. Kan could just hold onto the thought that he might have an ally willing to take his side against Kolivan, one person who would help him argue for his return. 

They reached the lion, who was waiting silently for them. The lion moved with surprising grace for something so large, lowering herself down over its legs and dropping her head down to the floor, opening her mouth to reveal the ramp. Kan climbed inside. Walking into the cockpit felt like coming home. He felt the bond again, stronger than before. He felt welcomed here. He sank into the pilot's chair and ran his hands over the displays that lit up around him. He felt like he belonged, like this was the one place in the entire universe where he absolutely fit. And now he had to tear himself away from it. 

"Red," Kan said, "I have to go away for a little while." He felt the hurt, but no anger. The lion could feel the emotions flowing the other way. Red knew how much this was hurting Kan too. "There are things I have to see to, but I want you to keep fighting. This war is too important to abandon just because it's difficult or we're upset. You need someone to act as your pilot while I'm away." Reluctance. Sadness. Understanding. "I trust Matt, and he's already family to some of the other Paladins. I want you to let him pilot you until I can come back." Resentment. Anger, but tempered with acceptance. The lion was agreeing with him. Red was definitely not happy about this, but she was willing to do what Kan asked. 

Kan stood, leaving the pilot seat empty, and turned to Matt, who had been watching Kan's side of the exchange. 

"Take a seat," Kan said. They were still in the hanger so if Red decided to instantly eject Matt, he wouldn't come to any harm. 

Cautiously, Matt came further into the cockpit. He lowered himself gently into the pilot's seat. His eyes went wide with surprise as the lion formed a connection with his mind. 

"Woah," was all Matt managed to say for several moments, but this was followed by a nervous, "I don't think she likes me," to Kan. 

"She's just upset because I'm leaving. If she really didn't like you, she wouldn't have agreed to make the bond with you." 

"So what happens now?" 

Kan ran a hand over the cockpit wall, feeling the bond still as strong as ever despite Matt's presence here. He hoped desperately that this wasn't the last time he would be inside his lion. In all the time he could remember, nothing had ever felt so right as standing in here. 

"Now," Kan said, "I take my ship and leave, before the others wake up. If they ask you, you don't know where I've gone." 

"It might be easier if I admit that I know where you've gone but tell them I'm sworn to secrecy. It might be easier to keep them from trying to follow you that way." 

"If you think that's best. I'll take a communications unit with me so that when I'm ready to come back, I can call." He didn't voice the possibility that he might not come back, even though he was sure all three of them knew that it existed. "Take care of yourself." He wasn't sure whether he was talking to Matt or the lion right then. 

He started back down the ramp out of the lion. Matt hurried after him. In the hanger, Matt caught hold of Kan's arm to stop him. 

"Thank you," Matt said, "for everything you've done for me, and for the stuff you did for my sister and Shiro even though you don't remember doing it." 

Kan wanted to dismiss the words, to shrug off the compliment, but that felt selfish somehow. Matt was offering him this, the least he could do was accept it. 

"You're welcome," Kan said. "Thanks for this." He nodded to the lion. "Look after Red." 

"I won't let you down." 

With that, Kan walked off to the pod bay and the transport ship he'd used to get here. It was simple enough to open the bay doors and then he climbed into his ship and fired up the engines. He paused outside the castle ship, turning his craft so he could look back at it, wanting to lock this in his memory forever. He wasn't going to forget again. 

Then he hit the engines to accelerate up to hyperspeed. 

***

He was supposed to go back to the headquarters. He could have done just that and then contacted Ulaz from there, but he wanted to get an ally on his side before facing the head of the Blade of Marmora. He'd never met Ulaz, never had a reason to, but he just had to hope that the man who'd helped Shiro escape the Galra would help him now. 

Kan knew the coordinates of Communications Base Thaldycon, even though he'd never had a mission here. It was a cloaked outpost, hidden in a pocket of space time, using a more powerful version of the cloaking technology that he'd been tasked with stealing back from the Galran Empire. It was the hub that was responsible for receiving the encoded transmissions of various spies, kept well away from the main headquarters so that if the enemy ever tracked the signals, its discovery wouldn't expose the rest of them. It's placement amid unstable xanthorium clusters was both a defensive measure against accidental discovery and a way to destroy the outpost as a last resort. 

When Kan arrived, it was daunting to fly straight at the volatile clusters, even though he knew the base was there. It felt like he was sending his ship towards certain doom, but then the universe opened out in a swirl of light and movement, revealing the pocket of space-time that had been folded in on itself. After a few moments, the base loomed out of the nothing front of him. 

"Identify yourself," the warning message popped up on his display. 

"My name is Kan. I have endured the Trials of Marmora." 

There was a period of silence from the outpost. Kan wondered how many weapons were locked on his ship right now. When a voice spoke over his communications system, it wasn't another automated message. This must be Ulaz. 

"I wasn't expecting a visitor," Ulaz said. 

"I'm here against orders. Kolivan doesn't know I've come." 

He was hoping that would intrigue Ulaz rather than anger him since he and Kolivan weren't known for getting along. There was a very long pause and Kan started plotting evasion maneuvers and an escape course in case Ulaz decided to punish him for breaching orders. 

"You may dock your ship," Ulaz said. Kan let out a breath of relief and piloted his little transport ship in through the opening docking bay doors. He parked in an empty refueling slot and started up the standard recharge procedures before climbing out of the ship. Kan activated his mask as he stepped out and made sure the symbol on his sword was active. He wanted to appear as one of the Blade of Marmora before he explained the rest of this. 

Ulaz was waiting for him in a similar manner, mask up, sword on his back ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. 

"Kolivan doesn't like his followers going against his orders," Ulaz said. 

"I know, but that didn't stop you from saving Shiro. You wanted to form an alliance with Voltron." 

"What of it?" 

Kan deactivated his mask, revealing his human features. "I think you're right." 

***

Ulaz had heard of Kan as a stranger rescued from death and then inducted into their organisation. Now Kan told him the rest of it, explaining about Matt and Shiro, about how he was the Red Paladin and that meant he had to leave the Blade, and how concerned he was about Kolivan's reaction. Ulaz listened carefully and then, when Kan was done, he considered carefully everything that had just been said. 

"The Blade of Marmora and Voltron are on the same side," Ulaz said, "or at least we should be. We both want to see Zarkon's reign of terror ended. Having different methods for achieving that doesn't me that we can't help each other. Kolivan is afraid to risk changing a way of life that has helped us survive, but we can't win the war without taking that risk at some point." 

"But how do we get him to see that?" 

Ulaz smiled grimly. "I have always found it better to act rather than to persuade Kolivan that action is the right course. Kolivan will be angry but he can't undo what's already been done." 

"Are you suggesting we just tell Voltron about the Blade?" Kan was horrified. This went against everything he'd been taught from the first moment he could remember. This wasn't just disobeying Kolivan but breaking the most scared rule that was ingrained in every part of what the Blade was. He couldn't do it. 

Kan imagined the way Kolivan would react, not just the fury but the disappointment. He would look at Kan as someone who had betrayed him personally. Kan knew he couldn't face that. No matter what he believed himself, he couldn't bear the thought of Kolivan reacting like that, looking at him like that. The Blade were the only family he could remember. Kolivan was the one who had saved his life, who had taught him and given him a purpose, who had listened to his judgement about Matt. After everything Kolivan had done for him, how could he turn against him now? 

"If it will make you feel better," Ulaz said, "I will tell them. I will accept the full responsibility when Kolivan wants to allocate punishments." 

"But he'll know I was involved. He'll know I pushed you to this." 

"Kan," said Ulaz, "what is more important, protecting the galaxy from Zarkon or one man's good opinion of you?" 

Kan knew what the correct answer to that question was, what the only possible answer could be, but this was _Kolivan_ they were talking about. Kan would sacrifice his life if it would make Kolivan think him worthy. 

"In the end, you have to do what you think is right," Ulaz continued. "You wouldn't have come here if you didn't think this was right." 

"I am a Paladin of Voltron," Kan said, remembering the sense of rightness he'd felt when he'd sat in the red lion's cockpit, "but I'm also a part of the Blade of Marmora." He remembered the way the blade had lit up in his hand, a short knife changing to a full sword. He remembered how it had felt to really belong somewhere, to know that he'd earned his place with the Blade instead of just being offered charity. "I don't want to have to give up one or the other. I want to be both." 

"Then let's make that possible," Ulaz said. "Do you have a way to contact Voltron?"


	15. Chapter 15

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Lance demanded as soon as the communications link established. "You show up, back from the dead, and then you just vanish again. No explanation, no note, nothing. Do you think it's fun jerking people around? Huh? Huh?!" 

"Lance," Shiro said in a placating tone, before pushing Lance away and taking his place in the middle of the communications screen. Lance continued to glare at Kan over Shiro's shoulder. 

"Where are you?" Shiro asked. 

"I'm sending you the coordinates to my location. There's someone here I want you all to meet." 

"Well that doesn't sound at all ominous," said Lance. "How do we know you've not been brainwashed by the enemy and you're luring us into a trap?" 

Kan wasn't sure how to answer that because if he'd been brainwashed he would naturally claim not to be. He didn't want to say anything about the Blade of Marmora over a communications channel, even one that should be encrypted, just in case. 

"If you don't all want to come," Kan said, "then send Matt in Red. He can see the situation and let you know it's OK for the rest of you." 

"I don't Red would let Matt anywhere near him without you here," Shiro said. 

"Actually," Matt said from somewhere off the side of the comm screen, "Kan... Keith and I had a talk with Red before he left. Red agreed to let me be his temporary pilot until Kan comes back." 

"I didn't want to leave Voltron a lion short," Kan explained, "but there were some things I had to see to. I'll explain when you get here." 

Shiro turned someone off screen and asked, "Do you know where he is?" 

Matt answered, "Not specifically, but I've got a pretty good idea the sort of place it is and who he wants you to meet." 

Kan was sure Matt was wrong about the second half of that. He probably thought Kan was orchestrating a meeting with Kolivan himself, but if that made it easier for Matt to convince the others, he could worry about correcting the assumption later. What mattered was bringing Voltron here to listen to what Ulaz had to say. 

"Who?" Katie asked. 

Matt just said, "I made a promise to keep some things secret, but I think we should go. I'll scout with Red if that makes you feel more comfortable." 

"If Matt thinks it's safe," Shiro said, "then we'll come." 

"I'll see you soon." 

Kan cut off the communication and went to tell Ulaz the good news. It wouldn't take long for the Voltron Paladins to arrive given the castle ship's ability to open wormholes, so Kan and Ulaz wasted no time in traveling out from the hidden pocket of space-time. Even though they were revealing the existence of the Blade of Marmora to Voltron, they didn't necessarily have to reveal the base itself or the technology that they used to hide from the Empire. Kan wanted to limit the extent of his betrayal of Kolivan and Ulaz had agreed, even though Kan was sure Ulaz was just humouring him. Kolivan was going to be furious about this no matter what. 

They waited in Kan's transport ship for the portal to open and the huge ship to materialise in front of them, then Kan piloted into the docking bay he'd left only recently. They were all waiting for him: the Paladins, Matt, Allura, Coran. They probably weren't going to react well to have a Galra on their ship. Kan just hoped they didn't try to stab Ulaz the Matt had tried with Antok. 

"Everyone," Kan said, "I'd like you to meet Ulaz." 

"Ulaz?" Shiro said, puzzlement in his voice. 

"I mean you no harm," Ulaz said. Then he deactivated his mask. 

Hunk and Lance pulled weapons out of seemingly nowhere, huge guns materialising in their hands and aimed at Ulaz in an instant. Kan stepped in front of Ulaz just in case, but kept his hands away from his sword. 

"Why did you bring a Galra onto my ship?" Allura demanded, but beside her, Shiro was still frowning. 

"I know you?" he said. 

"Hello again, Shiro," said Ulaz. "I'm glad my gamble with you paid off." 

"What's he talking about?" Lance asked. His gun was still aimed in Ulaz's direction, even with Kan standing in direct line of fire. 

"Ulaz is the one who freed Shiro when he was a gladiator," Kan explained. 

"What?" at least four voices demanded at once. 

"You didn't tell us that," said Lance. 

"I... didn't remember before. Not until I saw him. How I got off that ship was all hazy but, yes, Keith's right. Ulaz freed me. He's the one who told me to find Voltron." 

"He's Galra," Allura snarled. 

"Not all Galra are the same," Ulaz said. "Some of us have been working to undermine Zarkon's empire. We are called the Blade of Marmora." 

"The Blade of Marmora are the ones who saved me," Kan added, "and I was on a mission for them when I found Matt." 

Katie looked between Ulaz and Matt. 

"You knew about this?" she asked her brother. 

"I was sworn to secrecy," Matt said. 

"Our leader believes that complete secrecy is the only way for our order to survive to continue to do the work that is necessary. I disagree. I believe that an alliance between the Blade of Marmora and Voltron will make us stronger and help us in the battle against Zarkon. Kan came to me because he believes this too." 

"I swore to serve the Blade of Marmora," Kan said, "but I don't want to give up being a Paladin. I might not remember being a Paladin but the bond with Red... I _felt_ that. Both groups want the same thing so I think we should be able to work together." 

"I will never work with a Galra!" Allura declared. "They cannot be trusted." 

"I think we should hear them out," said Shiro. "We need allies in this war and if we can find allies from within Zarkon's own people, that's even better." 

"We don't often fight openly," Ulaz said, "but we have many spies in Zarkon's forces. We could find information about key targets, vulnerabilities, points of strategic value for you to focus your attacks on." 

"So you would expect us to do your dirty work and fight your battles," Allura said. "Or you will just feed us information to lead us into a trap." 

"If we were trying to fight you guys," Kan said, "I wouldn't need to go to all this trouble. I would have just put a bomb in the engine room to disable your ship or something." A lot of pairs of eyes stared at him. "I'm not saying I would." 

"That's how Sendak attacked us," Hunk said. 

"You disappeared and now you've come back with damn Galra battle strategies in your head!" snapped Lance. "You've got Galra armour and a Galra sword and you've turned into one of them." 

Kan guessed they didn't know that he also had some Galra DNA in him. Matt met his eyes but didn't say anything about it either. He must have decided it was Kan's secret to tell, and it was such a tiny fraction of his genetic code that Kan wasn't sure what difference it really made to who he was. 

"Lance," Shiro said. He seemed to do that a lot, stepping in to cut Lance off whenever he said angry things to Kan. Was that who he was, who he had been? Someone who needed protecting from another person's words? Kan didn't like the idea of needing to be protected. 

"All I was saying," Kan said, "was that I had every opportunity to hurt you if I was going to. You brought me onto your ship and gave me free reign. If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't have bothered bringing you to Ulaz." 

"Our ship," muttered Lance. 

"What?" 

"You said 'your ship' but it's our ship, or at least it was. You really don't think you're one of us anymore do you? You just ran away again. You abandoned your lion. I could never do that to Blue, but you just ran off without a second thought." 

"I had plenty of second thoughts." 

"You abandoned us!" Lance said. Behind all that anger, Kan thought he could see the hurt. It was like Red, whose emotions had been all muddled up. There had been a lot of anger in Red too, directed at Kan for leaving him alone, but behind all that anger was sadness and grief. Red had been hurting badly and Kan thought the same was true here as well. His instinct to argue with Lance faded as his understanding grew. Lance had thought his friend was dead and he probably wasn't over that. All the pain he'd felt at losing Keith had probably come rushing back when he'd found out Kan had gone. 

"I came back," Kan said. Technically he'd brought the others to him rather than the other way around, but the sentiment was the same. 

"I think we're getting off topic here," said Shiro. "Let's talk about this possible alliance." 

"I would need to arrange a meeting between you and the head of our order," Ulaz said. 

"More Galra!" Allura complained. "I'm not having more Galra in my castle." 

"Alright then," said Shiro. "I'll come to the Blade of Marmora and meet with your leader." 

"That was not what I meant," said Allura. 

"Nonetheless, I think the potential benefits of this alliance would be worth the risk." 

So it was decided, against Allura's continued objections, that Shiro would go the headquarters of the Blade of Marmora as the representative of Voltron. Kan would have to go, partly to speak for Shiro and partly to explain why he couldn't stay. Of course Ulaz was also going, as the senior member of the Blade he would take official responsibility and hopefully deflect some of the anger that was bound to be aimed at Kan. Kan knew that there was no way he could get through this without Kolivan being furious with him. Ulaz might claim responsibility but Kan would still be asking to leave the Blade and, worse, he would be showing up with an outsider for the second time. No one did that. Not ever. Certainly not twice. 

Before his departure, he huddled inside Red's cockpit, where he could give in to his terror without it be visible to the rest of the Paladins. He didn't mind that Red could sense his turmoil. The lion's presence in his thoughts was somehow calming, even though there was nothing Red could think or feel that would diminish what was about to happen. Kan had thought it would be easier to go back if he had Ulaz with him, but the situation was just as terrifying. He still felt the full weight of his betrayal. He was willfully going against everything Kolivan had taught him. Kolivan would never trust him again, never say a kind word or offer a friendly piece of advice. He would hate him now and for the rest of time. 

Kan sat on the floor, legs tucked up into his chest, not quite crying but feeling that it wouldn't take much to push him over the edge. If he started crying now, he wasn't sure he'd ever stop. It wasn't sadness really, but it was the sheer volume of emotion that was surging through him. He didn't know how to cope with it. 

"You know what kind of sucks," Matt said, climbing into Red's cockpit and making Kan jump. Kan sent a burst of fury at Red for letting Matt in here without warning him. 

"What?" Kan asked, trying to sound normal, as if he hadn't just been cowering in here to hide from the rest of the team. 

"I won't actually get to pilot Red." Matt offered him a grin. "I know she's your lion and you're her Paladin and all that, but I thought I'd get to fly her at least once. Now you're going to fly her to the meeting with Kolivan and when you come back you'll be officially her Paladin again. I'll never get my shot to fly her." 

Kan might have suggested Matt accompany him now, to have a go in the pilot seat, but there was no chance Kan would let Matt anywhere near the base again, not without Kolivan's full and explicit approval. Kolivan would be furious but so would Antok and Antok had made it clear he thought Matt should never have known their secrets in the first place. If Antok got it into his head to blame Matt for this, then Matt would be dead in moments. Kan would prefer to keep the two of them lightyears apart for a while, perhaps for the entire rest of the war against Zarkon. 

It wasn't his place to protect Matt anymore, but still he wanted to do it. 

"When I come back," Kan said, "I'll talk to Red about letting you take her out for a spin." Annoyance flowed to him from the lion. Red was not a toy to be passed around and she wanted Kan to know that. Kan patted the cockpit wall in what he hoped was a reassuring way. 

"I'm worried if I tried she'd throw me out into the path of a comet or something." 

"She wouldn't. She knows I'd be upset if you died." 

Matt smiled, "I'd be upset if you died too. Take care of yourself, Kan. Stay out of Antok's way." 

"I really, really hope to," Kan said. 

The comm screen flickered to life with Shiro's face. "Keith? Are you on there? It's time to go." 

"I'm here, Shiro," Kan called out. Responding to the name Keith still felt weird to him but it didn't seem likely to stop any time soon. He pulled himself to his feet and turned to look at Matt. He remembered the first day they'd met, the very first lesson Matt had offered him about Earth. Kan held out his hand to Matt. 

Matt smiled and took the offered hand, but he didn't shake it this time. He pulled Kan in and used the other arm to hug him. 

"Come back soon," Matt said. 

"I will." 

As Matt left Red's cockpit, Kan got into the pilot's seat and strapped himself in for launch. He placed his hands on the controls and the terror faded slightly as he felt the rightness of being in this position.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone's having a great weekend. I'm here to spoil it for you all with a cliffhanger. Enjoy. :)

Kan piloted Red, though he wasn't sure pilot was the right word. The lion seemed to know what he wanted to do instinctively, without him really having to use the controls. It was a strange sensation but also the smoothest flight experience he could remember having. It felt almost dreamlike, so much so that Kan actually wondered if he'd just fallen asleep and was dreaming all this up. It wouldn't be the first time he'd dreamt of flying Red. 

He followed Ulaz, who was flying the transport ship that Kan had taken from the Blade of Marmora. Shiro was following Red in his black lion. They could have all squeezed into the transport ship or taken just one of the lions, but Kan was glad they'd done it this way. They could return the Blade's ship to them and still have their lions to get them out of there. Kan was comforted to know that his lion would be close by. 

Red moved towards the Blade's base without any sign of doubt. Kan might have been nervous about flying an unfamiliar spacecraft along the dangerous path between the black holes and the star, but he wasn't at all anxious as he held onto the lion's controls. The lion moved with him, more responsive than any craft he could remember piloting, dodging debris and staying on the path between the competing gravitational forces. Behind him, the black lion didn't seem to be having quite so smooth a journey. Kan wasn't sure if that was because Black was significantly larger, making it harder for Shiro to dodge him between the debris that was spiraling into the black hole, or if it was something to do with Kan's piloting skills, or simply that Kan was more used to this journey. 

They reached the surface of the small planet that the base was built into. They lions wouldn't fit inside the bays, so Kan brought Red down to land near one of the hidden entrances. The entrance was already opening as he and Shiro stepped out onto the rocky ground, Antok and two others in the Blade's uniform and masks waiting for them. Kan was glad his own face was hidden by his mask because he really didn't want Antok to see how scared he was right now. 

Kan walked forward as though he had nothing to fear, Shiro falling into step beside him. Ulaz had taken his ship inside but he would hopefully join them on the way. 

"Come with us," Antok said. His tone was as angry as Kan had expected, but he didn't draw his weapon or make a threatening move. Not that he needed to. He could probably kill Kan before Kan could even get his hand around the hilt of his sword. Kan felt only slightly better when Ulaz joined them on the main elevator platform that lowered them from the surface into the heart of the base. 

Inside the command centre, ranks of Blade of Marmora fighters were waiting. With their masks up, Kan could only identify a few of them but those he recognised were some of their fiercest warriors. He was fairly confident the one nearest the door on the right was Eedun. There were others whose identity he could guess at and he knew he wouldn't stand a chance if it came to a fight with this group, even without Antok looming behind them. He wanted to believe that this was an honour guard to welcome Shiro, but it was far more likely to be a threat. Kolivan was preparing for the worst. This could turn violent in a heartbeat. Still, Kan walked down the centre of the room as though he were unafraid, even as he felt the trap closing around them. What was Shiro feeling right now? Did he fear the worst? Was he suspecting that Kan had betrayed him? 

What would those waiting on the castle say if he and Shiro never returned? What would Matt think? 

Kolivan waited for them beneath the symbol of Marmora, imposing as ever. Kan was glad once again for his mask, glad that Kolivan couldn't see how this was affecting him. He couldn't see Kolivan's expression either, couldn't see whether it was anger or disappointment on his face. 

Shiro stopped a little way in front of Kolivan and so Kan came to a stop beside him. Ulaz continued an extra step, taking a place in the front of the group. It wouldn't do much to shield them from the consequences that faced them. Kan knew what Ulaz had said about taking responsibility but right now he didn't feel like that would do the slightest good. 

"Kolivan," Ulaz said, "I have brought Shiro, Black Paladin of Voltron, to negotiate an alliance between our groups." 

Kolivan didn't speak at once. When he did, his voice sounded cold. 

"You have revealed the existence of our order to an outsider," he said. 

"I felt it worth the risk," Ulaz said, "because an alliance could help us all." 

"That's why I'm here," Shiro said. "We all want the same thing - an end to Zarkon's rule. We can help each other achieve this." 

"The Blade of Marmora operate in secrecy. Voltron does not." 

"All the more reason for us to work together. We can use your information to attack openly without exposing the existence of your group. We can fight battles you would avoid because the only option is a head on attack." 

"This would mean a complete change to our methods," Kolivan said. 

"Change isn't always bad." 

Ulaz said, "You know my view. We cannot defeat Zarkon unless we take a more offensive role. We have had successful operations and we have access to a great deal of information, but this means nothing unless someone uses that information to attack Zarkon full on. Voltron is offering us a great opportunity." 

"The risk to you is minimal," Shiro added. "We are out there fighting. If you provide us information about where and when to attack, it actually reduces the risk to your people because we won't be acting at cross-purposes. We won't accidentally attack your people along with the enemy." 

"There are missions you haven't authorised," said Ulaz, "because you couldn't see a way to complete them without giving away our existence to the enemy. Why not work with Voltron on those missions? One of our greatest scientists remains trapped in one of Zarkon's prisons because there's no way to rescue him in secret. Secrecy will not let us win." 

"Enough," Kolivan said. "I have heard your arguments before." 

"But you never listened," Ulaz said. Antok gave a low growl of warning but Ulaz ignored him. "This war will never end at the rate we've been going. It's time we change." 

"I have heard all you have to say," Kolivan said. "Paladin, do you have anything to say?" 

"I am alive today because of Ulaz. Voltron is active and working against Zarkon because he helped me. This was one action and it's changed so much for so many people. Just think about what else we could accomplish if we work together." 

"Thank you for your input. Now, I would speak to Kan alone." 

Ulaz took another step forward, moving sideways to come between Kan and Kolivan. "I was the one who decided to reveal our existence to the Paladins of Voltron. I did that when I helped Shiro, long before Kan took his oaths. If you want to speak to anyone about this situation, speak to me." 

"You have said all you need to say," said Kolivan. "I will speak to Kan." 

Ulaz moved forward again, but Antok leapt from behind, grabbing him. Ulaz responded with an elbow to Antok's neck while Shiro whirled towards the brute, purple light blazing up his mechanical arm. 

"Stop!" said Kan. Shiro froze. Ulaz stopped struggling. Even Antok stilled, though he didn't release the hold he had on Ulaz. There were other Blade warriors waiting for a single word of command to join in the fight. This could all turn to violence and death so quickly, even with Shiro's talk of alliances and there was no way the three of them could fight their way out of this. 

"I'll talk to Kolivan alone," Kan said. He fought down his fear and started forward, stepping around Ulaz and Antok. 

"Keith?" Shiro asked. He looked like he wanted to follow. He must have realised something was wrong by the way Ulaz had reacted. 

"It'll be OK," Kan said, surprised how calm his voice sounded. He was scared but there was no point having Shiro there, no way that could make things less bloody. He would have to face Kolivan alone eventually. Better to get the worst over with. Kan followed Kolivan into the heart of the control centre, a small inner room that could be closed off from the rest of the huge chamber, with a control table in the centre. There was a large, lidded box sitting on the table but Kan was more focused on other things, like Kolivan's stiffness. Kan was glad that Antok hadn't come with them, but he still took a moment to glance back before the door shut, seeing a glimpse of Shiro's worried face. Kan hoped this wouldn't be the last time he saw Shiro. 

"You revealed the existence of the Blade of Marmora to outsiders," Kolivan said. 

"I spoke to Ulaz first," Kan said. 

"You didn't speak to Ulaz to get permission, you spoke to him because you already knew what he would say. That doesn't absolve you of guilt. You revealed the existence of the Blade of Marmora to outsiders." 

"Yes." There was no point lying. It wasn't even a question. 

"You know that that goes against the most important rule of the Blade of Marmora." 

"Yes." Kan's hands were trembling. This was the moment, this was when he would face the consequences of his betrayal. From the harshness of Kolivan's tone, the commander had no intention of showing mercy. 

"This is not your first time breaching this law. Do you have anything to say in your own defence?" Kolivan asked. 

"I think an alliance is the right thing for us, for all of us." 

"That is not your decision to make. You could have spoken to me before acting and given your opinion and reasons without breaking any rules." 

"I know." Kan didn't apologise. He still felt that an alliance between the Blade and Voltron was the right thing to do and he wasn't going to back down from that position. Apologising seemed hypocritical. 

"Do you have any other defence?" 

"No. I stand by my choice." He was glad his voice didn't tremble. 

"You will be punished for your disobedience," Kolivan said. "We cannot allow for members to get away with breaking our most critical law and this is the second time you have brought an outsider to our headquarters without authorisation. Do you understand?" 

"Yes." Kan wished he'd just get on with it instead of asking about it, instead of drawing it out. Every second that passed made it harder to keep his resolved. No so long ago, he would have done anything for Kolivan's approval, would have faced an army for the sake of a single word of praise. Kan felt like something was breaking to pieces inside him that Kolivan would say these words to him now. He'd known this might come, he thought he'd been prepared for it, but nothing could have made him ready for this heartbreak. 

"Give me your sword," Kolivan said. 

Kan reached behind him and drew his sword from its place on his back. His hand only shook a little as he held out the sword and Kolivan took it from him. He held it lightly in one hand, turning it over, inspecting the blade. 

"Kneel," Kolivan ordered. Kan's legs crumbled beneath him and he collapsed to his knees. 

"Remove your mask," was the next order. Kan hesitated, but only because he didn't want Kolivan to see the fear on his face at what was to come, see the way his resolve was crumbling with every passing moment. He obeyed though, staring at the floor and waiting for the pain. Kolivan brought the sword forward slowly and Kan felt the sharp edge of his blade touch against the now-vulnerable skin of his neck. There was no pain yet, just the promise of what was coming. 

"For your knowing disobedience and your second infraction against our most important law, I revoke your membership of the Blade of Marmora. Do you have anything to say?" 

Kan had known this was a possibility. He'd known he was betraying Kolivan and the order. He'd hoped Kolivan would understand enough to let him live but he hadn't been certain. He was just glad Kolivan would at least make it quick. One stroke of the sword and it would be over, and Kan was almost glad that his own sword would be the weapon to end him. It felt fitting in a way. This was how it would end. 

He could call for help. If he yelled for Shiro, the Black Paladin would run in here to save him, assuming he could get past Antok. He could reach out with his lion's bond and Red would blast the hell out of the entire base in an attempt to rescue him. Even Ulaz would probably come running in here given his promise to take responsibility. But even if he was able to save his life by calling for help, that would lead to a war between the Blade and Voltron and that was the exact opposite of what he wanted. Kan had one last moment and he would use that to fight for something he believed in. 

"Please consider the alliance," Kan said. "I really think this is the right thing." 

At least Matt would get his wish to fly the red lion. 

As Kolivan raised his arm, lifting the sword from Kan's neck, Kan closed his eyes and waited for the killing blow.


	17. Chapter 17

"Remove your uniform," Kolivan said, his voice considerably less harsh than it had been moments earlier. Kan opened his eyes, surprised to see that Kolivan had set the sword aside. Kan just stared up at him in confusion. 

"You no longer have the right to wear our armour," Kolivan said, as though this explained everything. Kan wondered if this was an element of humiliation intended to add to his punishment, but Kolivan continued, "There is something in the box you can wear instead." 

Kan stood, still confused, legs shaking a little under him. He felt dazed as he reached out for the box and lifted the lid. He saw armour inside, in red and white. Aside for the colour, the helmet on top of the pile was identical to the one Shiro wore. This was his Paladin armour. Kan let out a slow breath, still not understanding, as he reached out and brushed his fingers over the helmet that had been his. 

"I didn't know the significance of it until I saw you arrive here piloting the red lion," Kolivan said, "but at the time it seemed wasteful to get rid of a perfectly good space suit, so we kept it in storage." 

Kan had never thought to ask about the suit he'd been wearing when he'd been found, but even if he had seen it, he wouldn't have known what it meant either. He wouldn't have recognised it as the armour of a Paladin of Voltron. But here it was, a piece of who he had been, being offered to him once again. Offered to him instead of the death he'd come here expecting. 

"You're not going to kill me?" Kan asked. 

"I wanted to see how you reacted." 

"This was a test?"

Kolivan nodded, "I needed to know how far you were willing to go for this idea and whether you would own the responsibility for your actions, but killing you would not be the best way to start an alliance." 

Kan's heart beat faster and hope rose up where terror had been moments before. "You mean you're going to agree to an alliance with Voltron?" 

"You were willing to die for your belief in this alliance," Kolivan said. "I should at least consider it." 

"Thank you." 

"I haven't agreed yet. There is still a lot we need to discuss but before we go back to your friend, you should change. I think this role will suit you better. You always were more interested in a direct fight than our normal approach." Kan wanted to believe that he heard a trace of pride in that tone. 

He quickly stripped off his familiar armour and started dressing in the unfamiliar uniform of a Paladin. This armour was a lot stiffer than what he was used to. It would probably offer considerably more protection against physical attacks, but it had a lot less flexibility. Hand-to-hand combat would take some getting used to in this. He waited for the feeling of rightness he'd had in the lion's cockpit, but it never came. The Paladin armour just felt strange and restrictive around his limbs. 

There was something in the bottom of the box, a red and white item with an obvious handle. He picked it up, cautiously curious, and found the thing transformed to his touch, extending out into a sword that was longer and straighter then his familiar Marmora blade. This would take some getting used to as well, but at least he would have a weapon. 

There was a switch on the handle that reverted the sword to its previous state, and Kan hesitated for a moment about what he should do with the weapon. There didn't seem to be a sheath or anything for it, but he found that when he held it against his leg, the weapon seemed to melt into the suit somehow. He could call it back by placing his hand against that spot and thinking about it, though he wasn't entirely sure how that made sense. Since he'd flown here in a magical lion, he wasn't going to question a sword that appeared and disappeared by magic. Even with this weapon, he looked with regret at that blade he no longer had the right to use. He wished he could reach out and take that sword up again. But he wasn't part of the Blade of Marmora now. This was the punishment he'd accepted. 

"We should return now," Kolivan said. He opened the door to the rest of the control room. 

Shiro was face down on the floor, Antok pressing a foot into his back to hold him pinned. His arm blazed with energy, but Antok's sword was pressed into the wrist, rendering the arm useless. Ulaz was on his knees, arms held by two other warriors. Kan wasn't entirely sure what had happened out here, but he guessed Shiro had become concerned that the conversation was taking too long and had tried to follow him into the inner room. Certainly Shiro looked surprise to see Kan walk out, though that might have had something to do with the Paladin armour. 

"Keith," Shiro said. 

"Antok, let him up," Kolivan ordered. Antok didn't look happy, but he obeyed. Shiro stood, the purple light fading from his arm. 

"Keith, are you OK?" Shiro asked. Kan nodded. He still felt a little shaky from the threat of death he'd just faced and he felt like he was walking around in the wrong skin wearing this armour, but he was unhurt and that was probably want Shiro meant. At least now he didn't have to decide between the Blade and Voltron, Kolivan had made that decision for him. 

"I am willing to discuss a possible alliance," Kolivan said. None of the watching warriors broke rank or did anything as undisciplined as murmuring, but Kan thought he saw a few masks twitch to look between them. 

"Thank you," Shiro said. "I'm sure this will help us all." 

"I didn't say I will agree to it, just that I'm willing to talk about it. This conversation could take some time. Shiro, we can talk somewhere more comfortable. The rest of you, you're dismissed." Kolivan turned to Kan briefly and said in a very quiet tone that probably no one else could hear, "Make your goodbyes." 

This would most likely be the last time Kan stood in this base. Even if they were allies from this point onwards, any meetings would probably be between the leaders and, in the interest of secrecy, Kan expected communications would be rare. He would probably never come back here again. He might never see any of the people who had been his allies and teachers. 

Shiro moved in the direction Kolivan led, but he paused at Kan's side and met his eyes. Kan wasn't wearing his mask anymore to hide his features and he wondered if he looked as shaken as he felt. 

"You sure you're alright?" Shiro asked. 

"I'm fine. Go discuss alliance strategies. There are things I have to do." 

Antok started to move after Kolivan, but received a sharp order that his presence wasn't necessary. That would probably help the discussions go more smoothly given that Antok and Shiro had been at each others throats moments earlier. Unfortunately though, that meant Kan and Antok were left standing next to each other. 

"So, you have abandoned your duty," Antok said, looking him up and down. 

"I forgot what my real duty was," Kan said. "I am a Paladin of Voltron." The words tasted foreign in his mouth and he didn't quite believe them yet. He was aware of the empty place on his back where his sword ought to be. Even though Kolivan had agreed to this, Antok's words stung because he still felt that way himself. He felt that he was abandoning the Blade in favour of Voltron, and that came with a dose of guilt. 

Kan ignored Antok and walked over to Eedun, who had lowered his mask. There was a trace of a smile on his lips. 

"Thank you," Kan said, "for everything you taught me." 

"Just remember to protect your right side when you fight with your left hand," Eedun said. Kan chose to translate that as Eedun wishing him luck and telling him to stay safe. 

"I will." 

Kan looked along the line of faces. Some of them he knew well, some of them he'd barely spoken to, but now he took the time to say goodbye to each of them, thanking them for specific help they'd offered. He received goodbyes and wishes of luck back. 

"The new armour suits you," one said. 

"At least this way you can charge into battle the way you like without worrying about secrecy," said another. 

"Kolivan said something very similar," Kan admitted. There were smiles and nods of agreement from the gathered group. 

Then it was time for him to leave this room and go through the rest of the base. He went to Maises and thanked her not just for her work healing him but for how she'd helped Matt. She smiled and nodded, and then loaded some medical files onto a data chip. 

"There's nothing secret on there," she said. "It's just standard information on species biology, diseases, treatments, all the usual reference and training materials medical staff require." 

"I'm sure he'll be grateful." 

"He will have to keep studying his written language to understand it all." 

There were a few others Kan needed to see, and he stopped by the training room one last time, staring around at the familiar space, and at the warriors practicing in the middle of the room. They looked with surprise at Kan's armour, and even more surprise when he said he was leaving. 

His rounds made, Kan returned to the control room to wait. The door to the inner room was open again and Kan could see Shiro and Kolivan inside, looking at a star chart and having an intense discussion. Antok glowered at Kan, but announced that the Red Paladin was to join them. 

Shiro offered Kan a smile and announced, "We're planning our first coordinated attack." 

So it had worked. He'd won. 

***

They flew back to the castle, with Kan piloting Red and Shiro taking Black. Kan led the way through the treacherous route out of the base, wondering if this would be his last time doing so. He didn't mind that as much as other things. Kolivan had stayed behind on the base and that was probably for the best, given how Allura had reacted to Ulaz. It was unlikely she'd welcome Kolivan with open arms. Kan was also glad to be leaving Antok behind. There might be occasions for them to fight together in the future, but for now Kan was happy not to have to deal with the brute. 

Kan took Red into his hanger and emerged onto the ship, not surprised to see Matt standing waiting for him. Lance was there too, which surprised Kan slightly, given that he didn't have the impression that they'd been close. Lance had kept talking about how they were rivals, but now he shot an annoyed look at them as Matt pulled Kan into a hug. 

"I wasn't sure you'd be coming back," Matt said. 

"Neither was I," Kan admitted. 

"Are you coming to tell us what happened," Lance asked, "or are you two just going to start making out or something?" 

Kan thought he heard bitterness in that tone. He made himself smile at Lance and then they went together to the bridge to explain the situation. On the way, Kan presented Matt with the gift from Maises and saw the way Matt's face lit up in a smile. He was probably already planning the lives he could save with that knowledge when he got back to Earth. 

The medical information wasn't the only data they had brought with them. Shiro had reports of troop dispersion and Galra activity across the galaxy. He displayed it for them now and they started talking about what their next move should be, where they should attack. Kolivan had given them a list of possible targets that the Blade of Marmora would have liked to destroy and Shiro started discussing the strategic merits of each of them. 

"We're really going to trust information from a group of Galra?" Allura asked. 

"I'm going to trust it," Shiro said. 

"Kolivan wouldn't lie about this," Kan added. The look Allura gave him was suspicious, as though she wasn't sure which side he was on. 

"There is something else we need to do first though," Shiro said. He looked at Kan. "We need to practice forming Voltron." 

***

"Don't worry if it takes some time," said Katie, or Pidge as she seemed to be known by the others. "It took us ages to get it working the first time." 

"At least we know what to do if we can't get in sync," said Hunk, which got grins from the others. 

Kan felt awkward and uncomfortable, knowing that he was the piece that didn't fit. The other four knew how to work together, knew how to synchronise to bring the lions together. Kan was the odd one out, still a stranger in this group that should have been his friends. It was like the armour, still uncomfortable and hard around him like it didn't fit right. He didn't fit into the team. 

He was afraid that they would know that soon, that it would be impossible for him to form Voltron with them. Despite Pidge's reassuring words, he was concerned that they would get frustrated at him for failing. What if they decided he didn't belong here afterwards? He'd been cast out of the Blade of Marmora. If he was cast out of Voltron he didn't know where he would go, what he would do. He was more afraid of this than he'd been of Kolivan killing him. 

Still, he went to his lion's hanger, astonished by the ridiculous journey, with zipwires and a strange speeder. The lions were a long way from the bridge, but he was sure there must be a more efficient way. He tried to put the thought out of his mind and launched Red. His lion roared into the sky alongside the others. He felt the bond with Red, felt excitement coursing through him and wasn't sure which of them it came from. 

It was like his dreams. He felt the rush of motion in the lion, felt each change of direction, the pull of gravity from a nearby star and the momentum of their flight. They were one, and they were one of many. 

He felt the bond to his lion, and through that he felt the bond to the others. He felt almost as though he could reach out and touch each of the other lions. 

Light blazed around him, energy flowing through their connection. He didn't even know how he was doing this, if he was controlling this or Red was, he just knew that he was linking to the others. He didn't have to use the controls, to press switches or buttons or anything as basic as that. It was just flowing together. Red's shape and form altered around him and then he was linked to the others, bound into a single weapon. He felt surprised and exhilarated, but pleased, thrilled even to be a part of this. 

"That took a lot less time than I was expecting," said Hunk over comm and Kan started laughing. His fears melted into relief. He'd thought this was be a battle, a challenge to be overcome, but it had flowed together as easily as breathing. He belonged here. Memory or no memory, he was a part of this team. Sitting with his hands on Red's controls, he felt home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only an epilogue left now.


	18. Chapter 18

"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Matt said, sitting gingerly in the pilot's seat, as though he expected Red to eject him out into space. Kan had made sure Matt was wearing a full space suit with the visor sealed, so if Red did that it wouldn't be a complete disaster. 

"Relax. You'll do fine," Kan said. 

"I still don't think she likes me." 

"She'll get over it." 

Annoyance flowed into Kan. He hoped Matt's bond was weak enough that he couldn't feel it or it would just make him more nervous. Red definitely wasn't happy about having someone other than Kan in the pilot seat, but Kan owed Matt so much, owed him for helping him find his way back here, that he wanted to give him something. This was the only gift he had to offer. Matt had wanted to fly Red just once, so that was what would happen.Whether or not Red was happy about it. 

Matt reached out and took hold of the controls. 

"I don't know what any of the buttons on the dashboard do," Matt said. Kan hadn't ever had to think about it. He had acted on instinct when he flew and Red had responded almost to his thoughts. It wouldn't be so simple for Matt, who didn't have the tight bond with the lion. 

"I'll be right here," Kan told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Just ease on the engine and take her out of the castle." 

The switch for the rockets was right there on the controls in Matt's hands. He touched it with a thumb and Red lifted off the hanger deck, nearly slamming into the ceiling above them. Matt gave a yelp of fear and pushed forward on the controls, sending Red tumbling out of the hanger in an uncontrolled spin. Kan clung on to the back of the pilot's chair to avoid getting flung about the cockpit. Red's artificial gravity warred with inertia and Kan struggled to keep his feet under him. 

Matt tried to slow down the spin with a short burst of the rockets but that just sent them tumbling lengthwise. The castle span in and out of the viewscreen. Kan had a suspicion that Red was making things difficult on purpose and sent a burst of his own annoyance through the bond. He reached past Matt and took hold of one of the main controllers, Matt relinquishing his hold without complaint. With a simple touch, Keith fired the rockets to stop the spin and bring them into the same relative motion as the castle. A few minor adjustments brought them about to face the castle. He let go again. 

"OK," he said. "Try taking us on a slow loop around the castle." 

Matt nervously resumed his grip on the controllers. They flew for a while longer, with Matt struggling to keep the lion under control. Red was definitely being temperamental, responding sluggishly to the controls one moment and then being overly responsive the next, meaning that Matt's path was constantly jerking around. Kan had to keep careful hold of the pilot's seat not to smash into the walls, but he wondered if he ought to let that happen once to see if Red would start behaving better to prevent him getting hurt. 

At one point, the lion nearly smashed into the side of the castle as Matt tried a frantic course-correction. 

"Easy, kitty," Kan said, patting the dashboard. 

"I can't believe you call this death trap 'kitty'," Matt grumbled. Red lurched violently, even though Matt hadn't activated any of the controls. Matt yelped. "Nope! That's it. This thing wants to kill me." 

He unfastened himself from the pilot's chair and clung onto Kan's arm for stability until Kan slipped into the seat in his place and Red instantly stopped jerking around. He could feel Red's smug sense of victory. 

"I think I've had my fill of piloting," Matt said. "You can race around in your homicidal lion. I'll stick to turning one of the labs into a vegetable garden for Hunk." 

Kan could almost feel Red purring in his mind as he wrapped his hands around the controls again. He had no intention of giving Red up to Matt. This was where he belonged. He hadn't regained his memory and he almost certainly never would, but that didn't stop him knowing exactly where he belonged and that was right here, in command of his lion and part of the front line of the war. He still didn't feel like Keith, but there was nothing stopping him being everything he needed to be as Kan. He didn't need to know his past to know where his future lay. 

"Come on, kitty," Kan said, aiming Red towards the hanger. "Let's go home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've had as much fun with this fic as I have. Thank you to everyone who's commented - comments are life to fanfic authors. :) 
> 
> Come join me over on Tumblr at http://jessicameats.tumblr.com for an assortment of posts about fandoms, writing, my books, and whatever else happens to grab my attention at the time. 
> 
> And keep an eye out for my next Voltron fic. I have a couple more ideas for AUs, both of which seem to involve large amounts of Keith angst. This may be becoming a pattern.


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